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Category Archives: Winter 2020 – 2021 Workshops

TRANS (Is Not An Abbreviation), a Workshop taught by Claire Rudy Foster | January 4 to 25, 2021

Cleaver Magazine Posted on September 20, 2020 by thwackSeptember 20, 2020

text image trans is not

TRANS (Is Not An Abbreviation)
Writing Transgender Characters through the lens of the body
taught by Claire Rudy Foster

4 Zoom Sessions
January 4, 11, 18, 25, 8-10 pm ET
$200
Class limit: 12
Questions: [email protected]

Register Now

This workshop will discuss how to write about transgender characters through the lens of the body. Transgender bodies are vilified, objectified, fetishized, and punished. How do we write about trans joy, pleasure, and freedom? Writers will generate body-specific pieces of imagined or experienced memoir and learn about how to create transgender characters that avoid cliched, harmful tropes. Cisgender students are asked to read a sensitivity statement before attending.

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Published on September 20, 2020 in Fiction Workshops, Winter 2020 - 2021 Workshops, Workshops. (Click for permalink.)

WEEKEND WRITING with Andrea Caswell | Ongoing Series

Cleaver Magazine Posted on September 19, 2020 by thwackDecember 7, 2020

A coffee cup on a b/w backgroun

WEEKEND WRITING
for practice and inspiration
open to all levels and genres|Taught by Cleaver Editor Andrea Caswell

4 weeks, Sundays 10:30 am – 12:00 pm ET
Session 1: January 10, 17, 24, 31
Session 2: February 7, 14, 21, 28
Session 3: March 7, 14, 21, 28
$100
Class limit: 12
This class can be repeated monthly. (Re-registration required). May be taken in conjunction with Tricia Park’s EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY classes.
Questions: [email protected]
Register NowWEEKEND WRITING is a weekly generative writing session for writers of all levels and genres. Every Sunday, enjoy this 90-minute writing retreat as we read and discuss short prose, experiment with optional prompts during focused in-class writing time, and nurture a personal writing practice rooted in curiosity and creativity. Whether you want to build structure into your writing week or simply play in your notebook, you’ll enrich your weekend with other writers in a motivational and supportive setting.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” ~Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

The class can be repeated as many times as you like.

What you’ll get from this class:

– Once a week, real-time meetings with your instructor and fellow writers

– Reading and discussion of short inspirational texts

– Dedicated in-class writing time each week

– Optional prompts that invite experimentation and discovery

– Consistency in building a personal writing practice

– A safe and supportive writing community


Andrea Caswell ‘s writing has been published widely in print and online. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Tampa Review, River Teeth, The Normal School, Columbia Journal, Atticus Review, and others. She holds a master’s from Harvard University and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She’s a fiction editor for Cleaver Magazine, and is the founder of Lime Street Writers, a monthly workshop north of Boston. In 2019 her fiction was accepted to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. A native of Los Angeles, Andrea now lives and teaches in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Contact her at www.andreacaswell.com.

 

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Published on September 19, 2020 in CNF Workshops, Fiction Workshops, Poetry Workshops, Spring 2021 Workshops, Winter 2020 - 2021 Workshops, Workshops. (Click for permalink.)

THE ART OF FLASH, Workshop in Fiction and Nonfiction, taught by Cleaver Flash Editor Kathryn Kulpa | January 3 to February 7, 2021 SOLD OUT

Cleaver Magazine Posted on September 17, 2020 by thwackDecember 7, 2020
Neon Lightning Bolt

THE ART OF FLASH

A Workshop in Fiction and Nonfiction

Taught by Cleaver Flash Editor Kathryn Kulpa

5 weeks
SOLD OUT
Class limit: 12
Questions: [email protected] 

Register Now

Flash is a genre defined by brevity: vivid emotions and images compressed into a compact form. We most often see flash fiction, but flash can also encompass prose poetry, micro memoir, lyric essays, and hybrid works.

In this class, we will take a close look at different styles and forms of flash fiction, as well as flash nonfiction, hybrid, and experimental works. Each week, we will read and discuss one or more example-works and generate new work from prompts. Students will share their work for peer and instructor feedback, then will choose one story to revise for the final class.

This workshop has weekly deadlines and assignments to help motivate you to write, but the work can be done at your own pace and on your own time—there are no required meetings (although we may have an optional Zoom pop-up or two and bonus prompts for those who are interested). We welcome both new and experienced writers looking for motivation, structure, and constructive criticism.


Kathryn Kulpa was a winner of the Vella Chapbook Contest for her flash chapbook Girls on Film (Paper Nautilus) and has had work selected for inclusion in Best Microfiction 2020 (Pelekinesis Press).  Her flash fiction is published or forthcoming in Jellyfish Review, Monkeybicycle, Smokelong Quarterly, and Wigleaf, and she serves as flash editor for Cleaver Magazine. Kathryn has been a visiting writer at Wheaton College, and has led writing workshops at the University of Rhode Island, Stonecoast Writers Conference at the University of Southern Maine, Writefest in Houston, Texas, and at public libraries throughout Rhode Island.


SYLLABUS

Topic One: Time and Place

Time constraints in flash fiction—handling transitions—telling a larger story through a selected moment—zoom lens or wide angle?—creating a vivid setting in few words

Topic Two: Voice, Character, and Point of View

Choosing a lens—whose story?—first, second, and third-person—single or multiple points of view—speed dating: shorthand character reveals

Topic Three: Where Prose Meets Poetry

Borrowing poetic techniques to create brilliant flash—image is everything—white space and stories in stanzas—the right sound—the power of repetition

Topic Four: Flash Frontier: Experimental and Hybrid Forms

Prose poetry—lists, recipes, and want ads: hermit crab stories—lyric essays—ekphrastic flash—using found objects to tell a story

 

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Published on September 17, 2020 in Fiction Workshops, The Art of Flash, Winter 2020 - 2021 Workshops, Workshops. (Click for permalink.)

POETIC ANATOMIES: Dissecting Form and Formlessness in Poetry, a workshop taught by Claire Oleson | January 16 to February 20, 2021 SOLD OUT

Cleaver Magazine Posted on September 16, 2020 by thwackDecember 18, 2020

antelope skeleton

POETIC ANATOMIES:
Dissecting Form and Formlessness in Poetry
Taught by Cleaver Poetry Editor Claire Oleson

5 weeks
January 16 to February 20
SOLD OUT
Class limit: 12
Questions: [email protected]

Register Now

In this course, we will investigate how form is used in poetry to create meaning, house language, and allow the content of a poem to achieve a significance that echoes beyond the bounds of its literal words. Whether participants are wholly new to sonnets and couldn’t tell you whether a villanelle is part of a cake recipe or a manuscript, there will be room for growth, experimentation, and attentive feedback.

We will work primarily on generating new work, encouraging participants to push their boundaries and hone their voice to create memorable and authentic pieces. The workshop model will facilitate constructive responses from both peers and the instructor. Particular attention will be placed on the formal life of the poetry we read and write.

We will read a few selections of poetry weekly that demonstrate the application of different forms in poetry. By the end of the course, students will know how to recognize poetic forms “in the wild,” know the origins of the form’s creation, be able to write within the form, and know when and where it can be broken with significance. The readings will be brief but rich, with the intent of inviting multiple re-readings, close readings, note-taking and flexibility for everyone’s lives and work. Supplemental reading will be available for those hungry for more plums from the proverbial icebox. Prompts will be provided inspired by the week’s reading, but will be designed more as springboards for beginning rather than hard-and-fast regulations. Work will be submitted weekly for peer and instructor review. One piece will be chosen by the student for revision for the final class. Optional Zoom conferences will be held to discuss the reading for those interested. We welcome both new and experienced writers looking for motivation, structure, and constructive criticism.

A final optional Zoom meeting will be held as a reading of our work.

SYLLABUS

1: Introductions: What is form: The body of the poem?

We will open with an investigation of what “form” means and how its both employed (and oftentimes, entirely ignored) in poetry. This week will focus on prose poetry and what it means to start, first, with a seeming abandonment of all things conventionally poetic, but still embrace the title of “poem”

2: Haiku and Haibun

We will take a look at two linked forms and discuss the history of these forms, their background, and how they work in concert with one another. With a knowledge of poetic history, participants will approach their own work with a chance to make decisions of form and formlessness that will come weighted with intention.

3: Sonnet and Derivations

This module will invite an exploration of classic forms of the sonnet as well as more contemporary evolutions. From the Shakespearian strict structure to what James Gate Percival entitled “The American Sonnet,” readers and writers will take a tour of authorial intent and poetic migration.

4: Villanelle and Sestina

In this second to last week, we will dive into two forms that employ repetition. Learning about how the same line written twice can come to carry an entirely different meaning, we will focus n reading and writing for sonics, sensation, and transformation.

5: The Final Form

In this final module, we will unleash the writers to confine or free themselves: they will approach a written piece of their own and make careful edits with peer and instructor feedback in mind as well as the gained ability to tweak their pieces into forms wholly their own. This will be the week for revision, encouraging everyone to push their boundaries and consider how their final piece’s consciously engage or break from form to elevate and embody their language.

New Modules posted on Mondays,
Pieces due by Friday, 11:59,
Feedback from All Due by Sunday, 11:59


Cleaver Poetry Reviews Editor Claire Oleson is a Brooklyn-based writer hailing from Grand Rapids Michigan. She’s a grad of Kenyon College, where she studied English and Creative Writing. Her work has been published by the University of Kentucky’s graduate literary journal Limestone, Siblíní Art and Literature Journal, Newfound Journal, NEAT Magazine, Werkloos Magazine, and Bridge Eight Magazine, among others. She is also the 2019 winner of the Newfound Prose Prize and author of the chapbook Things From the Creek We Could Have Been. 

 


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Published on September 16, 2020 in Poetry Workshops, Winter 2020 - 2021 Workshops, Workshops. (Click for permalink.)

THE ART OF THE SCENE, a Workshop in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction, taught by Lisa Borders | January 3 to February 5, 2021

Cleaver Magazine Posted on September 16, 2020 by thwackSeptember 17, 2020

The art of the scene cover image

THE ART OF THE SCENE 
A Workshop in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction
Taught by Lisa Borders

5 weeks
January 3 to February 5
introductory Zoom meeting at 2 pm ET on Sun Jan 3

Register Now$225
Class limit: 12
Questions: [email protected]

The writer Sandra Scofield describes a “pulse”—that spark that makes the story come alive— as a vital element to all scenes. This pulse is especially crucial for opening scenes, as many agents and editors report that if they are not hooked on a manuscript within the first five pages, they will not read on.

But what is a “pulse,” and how can a writer ensure that each scene—not just the opening— has one? How can we write in such a way that our characters come to life, that a scene breathes emotion and urgency, while moving the plot forward and keeping tension taut?

In this class we’ll look at opening scenes, pivotal scenes and transitional scenes in published novels and memoirs, analyzing them for a “pulse”—that spark that makes the story come alive—and for the ways in which they hook the reader, introduce the characters, and (for opening scenes) signal the book’s scope. We’ll define the elements of a scene and discuss techniques for writing scenes that breathe emotion and urgency while moving the plot forward and keeping tension taut.

We’ll also workshop an opening scene from your novel or memoir in progress of no more than 1800 words in length, applying a checklist to help you determine whether your book’s opening passes the “pulse” test—and if not, strategies for creating a first scene the reader can’t put down. You will then revise these scenes, or submit a new opening scene for instructor feedback.

This class will have one synchronous meeting: an introductory Zoom meeting on Sunday, January 3 from 2 – 3:30 pm EST. Writers will receive a schedule for submitting scenes to be workshopped in Weeks 2 – 4 as part of the Week 1 lesson.

Readings will include scenes from works by Rishi Reddi, Hanya Yanagihara, Joan Didion, Elizabeth Strout and Piper Weiss, among others.


SYLLABUS

Week 1: Introduction

  • What is a scene?
  • Scene elements
  • Creating tension within a scene
  • Readings

Week 2: Types of Scenes – Part I

  • Opening Scenes
  • Pivotal Scenes
  • Readings
  • Four scenes workshopped

Week 3: Types of Scenes – Part II

  • Flashback Scenes
  • Transitional Scenes
  • Readings
  • Four scenes workshopped

Week 4: Scene vs. Exposition

  • Definitions
  • Debunking “show don’t tell”
  • Pacing
  • Readings
  • Four scenes workshopped

Week 5: Scene CPR

  • Checklist for revision
  • Revise workshopped scene or submit new scene to instructor

Lisa Borders’ second novel, The Fifty-First State, was published by Engine Books in 2013. Her first novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, was chosen by Pat Conroy as the winner of River City Publishing’s Fred Bonnie Award, and received fiction honors in the 2003 Massachusetts Book Awards. Lisa’s short stories, essays and humor have appeared in The Rumpus, McSweeney’s, WBUR’s Cognoscenti, Post Road, Washington Square and other journals. She has received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Somerville Arts Council and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and fellowships at the Millay Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hedgebrook and the Blue Mountain Center. Lisa also teaches at Boston’s GrubStreet, where she founded the Novel Generator program and co-founded the Novel Incubator program. More information on Lisa is available at lisaborders.com.


 

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Published on September 16, 2020 in CNF Workshops, Fiction Workshops, Winter 2020 - 2021 Workshops, Workshops. (Click for permalink.)

EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY, Part 1 of Two A Workshop to Jumpstart Your Writing | January 10 to February 7, 2021 | Asynchronous

Cleaver Magazine Posted on September 15, 2020 by thwackDecember 26, 2020

EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY, Part 1 of Two
A Workshop to Jumpstart Your Writing
open to all levels and genres
Parts 1 and 2 may be repeated or taken out of order
taught by Cleaver Editor Tricia Park
Asynchronous Version

5 weeks
January 10 to February 7, 2021
$250
Class limit: 12
Questions: [email protected]Register Now

“But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

In this class, we won’t try to fix what isn’t broken. We’ll hold our vulnerability and begin creating from where we are. We’ll give ourselves permission to commence, no matter how fragile the surface under our feet feels. Together, we will enter and engage with the work as it begins to speak to us, and we’ll allow ourselves to follow that uncertainty and see where it takes us.

THIS CLASS IS OPEN TO WRITERS OF ALL LEVELS AND GENRES. In this workshop, we will generate new writing through exercises and assignments; provide and receive feedback on writing you produce in our workshop.

This class offers weekly deadlines and assignments but you can work at your own pace and on your own time—there are no required meetings (although we may have an optional Zoom check in or two to provide additional support and inspiration.)

What you’ll get in this class:

  • Gently intriguing prompts to jump start your creativity
  • Reading and discussion of texts by inspiring writers.
  • A safe and supportive environment to cultivate your writing.
  • Small, clearly defined weekly assignments to keep you motivated.
  • New writing that you can continue to nurture and grow at home.

Each week, we’ll explore exercises/prompts that I hope will generate work that will surprise and delight you. We’ll also read and discuss texts that I’ll provide for you as examples to emulate and prompt new writing. Most importantly, I am looking forward to the community we’ll create together so that you may feel free to venture eagerly into your uncertainty and take new and playful risks in your writing.

There will be space to share your work and receive feedback on your writing. I’ll provide clear guidelines for constructive feedback on new and early drafts. The focus of this class is to develop your practice and generate new writing!

If possible, I encourage you to write long-hand for your generative work and then transcribe to the Canvas discussion board but a laptop or tablet is also fine.

Note: The Canvas platform works best with the Chrome and Firefox browsers. If you are experiencing technical difficulties in Safari, try accessing the class in a different browser. There is also a Canvas Student App available through Apple or Google Play.

CLASS OVERVIEW:

Week One: Freewriting and Playfulness

Elizabeth Gilbert writes, “I made a decision long ago that if I want creativity in my life – and I do – then I will have to make space for fear, too.” We’ll find ways to move through resistance as we approach our writing with playfulness and curiosity. We’ll dive into freewriting and whimsical exercises/prompts.

Week Two: Using our Senses 

Maya Angelou reminds us that “once you appreciate…one of your senses, your sense of hearing, then you begin to respect the sense of seeing and touching and tasting, you learn to respect all the senses.” Sensory details infuse our writing with richness and dimension. We’ll respond to prompts that encourage us to take in our surroundings and connect with our senses.

Week Three: Walking Down Memory Lane

Lois Lowry says, “I’ve always been fascinated by memory and dreams because they are both completely our own. No one else has the same memories. No one has the same dreams.” We’ll delve into our unique memory banks to mine our past and present, generating writing that is bound to surprise us.

Week Four: Following our Obsessions

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, “a man is what he thinks about all day long.” In this week’s class, we’ll discover ways to follow our obsessions and redirect our mind’s tendencies to fuel our writing.

Week Five : “Gaming” our Writing 

In the last class we will explore ways we can “game” our writing, approaching it obliquely with a light-hearted touch. We’ll see how prioritizing “play” through constraints and rules can, paradoxically, free up our writing.


Tricia Park Author PhotoTricia Park is a concert violinist and writer. The recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, she has appeared in concert on five continents. Tricia is the producer/host of a podcast called “Is it Recess Yet? Confessions of a Former Child Prodigy.” Tricia is a graduate of The Juilliard School and received an M.F.A. from the Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her writing has appeared in Cleaver Magazine, Alyss, and F Newsmagazine. She has also been a finalist for contests in C&R Press and The Rumpus. Currently, she is a Lecturer and Artist-in-Residence at the University of Chicago. Tricia has taught creative writing online and at the University of Iowa.

In this class, we won’t try to fix what isn’t broken. We’ll hold our vulnerability and begin creating from where we are. We’ll give ourselves permission to commence, no matter how fragile the surface under our feet feels. Together, we will enter and engage with the work as it begins to speak to us, and we’ll allow ourselves to follow that uncertainty and see where it takes us.

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Published on September 15, 2020 in Winter 2020 - 2021 Workshops, Workshops. (Click for permalink.)

TELLING TRUE STORIES, a Workshop in Creative Nonfiction, by Sydney Tammarine | December 7, 2020- January 9, 2021 SOLD OUT

Cleaver Magazine Posted on August 30, 2020 by thwackDecember 7, 2020

cover image telling true stories a lightbulb on a dark backgroundTELLING TRUE STORIES
A Workshop in Creative Nonfiction
Taught by Cleaver Editor Sydney Tammarine

5 weeks
December 7, 2020- January 9, 2021
Class limit: 12
Questions: [email protected]
SOLD OUT

Register Now

Writer Dinty W. Moore says that creative nonfiction equals curiosity plus truth. CNF comes in a variety of forms: from expansive memoir to intimate personal essay to the lightbulb “eureka!” of flash. But in any form, the CNF writer is a guiding voice in the dark: a storyteller seeking truth, thinking alongside the reader toward a deeper understanding of ourselves and our world.

In this class, we’ll practice the essay in its most dynamic form: a verb that means “to test; to practice; to taste; to try to do, accomplish, or make (anything difficult).” Each week, we will read and discuss one or more example essays and generate new work from prompts. Students will share their work for peer and instructor feedback.

This workshop has weekly readings and writing assignments to inspire you—and deadlines to motivate you—but the work can be done at your own pace and on your own time. There are no required meetings, although we’ll hold optional Zoom write-ins and discussions for those who are interested. We welcome both new and experienced writers looking for motivation, structure, and enthusiastic feedback on their work.


Sydney TammarineSydney Tammarine’s work has appeared in Ploughshares, LIT, Pithead Chapel, The Missing Slate, and other journals. She is the co-translator of a book of poems, The Most Beautiful Cemetery in Chile. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hollins University and teaches writing at Virginia Military Institute. She has led workshops at The Ohio State University, Hollins University, Otterbein University, and at high schools, including as Writer-in-Residence at Appomattox Regional Governor’s School. She serves as flash and creative nonfiction editor for Cleaver.


SYLLABUS

Topic One: Writing the Tough Stuff

In our first week together, we’ll explore: Why does the most powerful writing often come from loss, grief, or trauma? What value do the “tough stories” of our lives have to others? Why is nonfiction uniquely posed to connect us to others, and what value do the “tough stories” of our lives have to them? We’ll also practice strategies for writing our toughest material in an environment that’s safe and encouraging.

Topic Two: Finding Your Truth

Novelist Tim O’Brien often talks about the role of truth in his fiction: “I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why a story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” In CNF, we have an obligation to truth that is greater than just getting the facts right. How do we write the story-truth, the happening-truth, as best we know it? Can any piece of writing be objectively true? We’ll talk about strategies for writing in the face of these questions, and also for finding what we think we can’t remember.

Topic Three: Hell is (Writing About) Other People

Writer Anne Lamott said, “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” But that doesn’t always feel so easy, does it? This week, we’ll practice making characters in nonfiction—including yourself—feel real on the page, and discuss the ethics of writing about other people.

Topic Four: Finding Poetry in Prose

The Seneca Review describes the lyric essay as “[l]oyal to that original sense of essay as a test or a quest, an attempt at making sense,” but with prose that “might move by association, leaping from one path of thought to another by way of imagery or connotation, advancing by juxtaposition or sidewinding poetic logic.” This week, we’ll try out such poetic logic, experimenting with moves that can bring the music of poetry to our prose.

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Published on August 30, 2020 in CNF Workshops, Fall 2020 Workshops, Winter 2020 - 2021 Workshops, Workshops. (Click for permalink.)

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Cleaver Magazine offers affordable online generative workshops in flash, fiction, creative nonfiction, visual narrative, poetry, and narrative collage.

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UPCOMING CLASSES

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WEEKEND WRITING with Andrea Caswell | Ongoing Series

text image trans is not

TRANS (Is Not An Abbreviation), a Workshop taught by Claire Rudy Foster | January 4 to 25, 2021

cover image telling true stories a lightbulb on a dark background

TELLING TRUE STORIES, a Workshop in Creative Nonfiction, by Sydney Tammarine | December 7, 2020- January 9, 2021 SOLD OUT

Neon Lightning Bolt

THE ART OF FLASH, Workshop in Fiction and Nonfiction, taught by Cleaver Flash Editor Kathryn Kulpa | January 3 to February 7, 2021 SOLD OUT

The art of the scene cover image

THE ART OF THE SCENE, a Workshop in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction, taught by Lisa Borders | January 3 to February 5, 2021

EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY, Part 1 of Two A Workshop to Jumpstart Your Writing | January 10 to February 7, 2021 | Asynchronous

EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY, Part 1 of Two A Workshop to Jumpstart Your Writing | January 10 to February 7, 2021 | Asynchronous

antelope skeleton

POETIC ANATOMIES: Dissecting Form and Formlessness in Poetry, a workshop taught by Claire Oleson | January 16 to February 20, 2021 SOLD OUT

Ask June!

Cleaver’s in-house advice columnist opines on matters punctuational, interpersonal, and philosophical, spinning wit and literary wisdom in response to your ethical quandaries. Write to her at today!

ASK JUNE: Coronavirus II: The Old Marcher and the Masked Baby

ASK JUNE: Coronavirus II: The Old Marcher and the Masked Baby

A note to my readers: Here are a few more coronavirus-related letters. Knowing what I know now, I would have submitted them all at once, a few weeks ago, instead of spacing them out. Things have changed so quickly since that first batch: problems like nagging mothers and the niceties of social-distancing behavior may seem petty and quaint as compared to the deadly-serious questions and sweeping protests following the murder of George Floyd. I will submit my second batch of letters now, but humbly, in hopes that they may provide a moment of entertainment for those of you who are ...
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June 9, 2020

Issue 33Launch!

March 23, 2021
67 days to go.
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Daily Thwacks

Six Days in November by Emily Steinberg

Monday Evening

Emily Steinberg’s QUARANTINE JOURNAL

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Dispatches from inner and outer space… …
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SISTERHOOD: How the Books we Both Read Helped Me Write My Sister’s Life into Fiction, a Craft Essay by Jane Rosenberg LaForge

SISTERHOOD: How the Books we Both Read Helped Me Write My Sister’s Life into Fiction, a Craft Essay by Jane Rosenberg LaForge
SISTERHOOD How the Books we Both Read Helped Me Write My Sister’s Life into Fiction A Craft Essay by Jane Rosenberg LaForge When my sister, Susan, was still in elementary school, a family friend gave her ... Read More
January 13, 2021

WHITE MAGIC, essays by Elissa Washuta, reviewed by Eric Buechel

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WHITE MAGIC by Elissa Washuta Tin House, 432 pages reviewed by Eric Buechel In Elissa Washuta’s book of linked essays, ​White Magic​, she writes about her substance abuse candidly, describing getting high with cough syrup ... Read More
December 28, 2020

A BOOK BY ANY OTHER NAME: ON TITLES AND DATING: A Craft Essay by Melinda Scully

A Man and a Woman behind a fogged class window
A BOOK BY ANY OTHER NAME: ON TITLES AND DATING A Craft Essay by Melinda Scully Imagine a reader is on a blind date with your book or short story. Maybe a friend set them ... Read More
December 23, 2020
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