On Person and Place
The author of I’ll Give You a Reason explores how setting shapes characters.
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In our weekly series of craft essays, some of the best and brightest minds in contemporary literature explore their craft in compact form, articulating their thoughts about creative obsessions and curiosities in a working notebook of lessons about the art of writing.
The author of I’ll Give You a Reason explores how setting shapes characters.
The author of Short War offers some perspective on whether a first person narrator can enhance or inhibit a story.
The author of Short War ponders the ways research can deepen a fiction project—and how to know when enough is enough.
The author of Short War contemplates the rewards of modeling minor characters on real people.
The author of Yaguareté White explores the poetic art of balancing fact and fiction.
The author of Yaguareté White considers the ethics of found poetry.
The author of Yaguareté White contemplates how to approach writing in multiple languages.
The author of Midwhistle explores the power of the epic poem.
The author of Midwhistle contemplates the common ground between jazz music and poetry.
The author of Midwhistle considers how a poem’s title can frame, deepen, or complicate the reader’s experience of it.
The author of Family Family explores why tired tropes proliferate in fiction—and how to avoid them.
The author of fox woman get out! considers authenticity and how to find one’s authentic voice.
The author of fox woman get out! explores the connections between poetry and dance.
The author of fox woman get out! offers a climatic approach to reading and writing verse.
The author of The Last Language explores the relationship between individual subjectivity and the ability to suspend disbelief when reading fiction.
The author of The Last Language considers the relationship between character and speech.
The author of The Last Language considers how to strike the right note of ambiguity in a novel.
The translator of Luis Felipe Fabre’s Recital of the Dark Verses shares lessons from translation that can improve all creative prose.
The translator of Luis Felipe Fabre’s Recital of the Dark Verses considers the nuances of crafting a faithful translation.
The author of Recital of the Dark Verses explores poetry and translation as an encounter with “the Other.”
The author of Wine People explores how conducting interviews can inform narratives and characters.
The author of Wine People offers an exercise in getting to know your characters.
The author of Wine People considers how a more expansive understanding of setting can deepen a story.
The author of Rachel to the Rescue and Ms. Demeanor explores the risky business of fictionalizing public figures.
The author of The Museum of Human History discusses how the human mind and archetypal narratives informed her novel.