How to Write Ethically About Those You Love, and Don’t Love Anymore
The author of Pulse (Omnidawn, 2026) offers insight on how to approach writing sensitively about one’s most intimate relationships.
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Craft Capsules
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.
Ethical Rage: How Metaphor Transforms Anger Into a Higher Truth
The author of Pulse (Omnidawn, 2026) considers how metaphor can help metabolize anger.
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Lie Well: How to Fib Ethically in Your Poems
The author of Pulse (Omnidawn, 2026) considers how one can morally bend the truth in poetry.
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Interrogating Every Line
The author of Clutch (Tin House, February 2026) describes the rigorous line work that went into finishing her manuscript.
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Manipulating the Shape of a Story
The author of Clutch (Tin House, February 2026) reflects on adjusting rising and falling action across time in fiction.
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The Accordion Method of Time Management, or Thoughts on Scene
The author of Clutch (Tin House, February 2026) reflects on poetic time, dialogue, and writing effective scenes.
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On Multimodality, Form, and Reverent Innovation
The author of Cord Swell (Norton, 2025) considers the power of leveraging different media in poetry.
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Capturing Sacred, Secular Imagery
The author of Cord Swell (Norton, 2025) reflects on offering reverence to ordinary objects in poetry.
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Crafting the Artifact of Voice
The author of Cord Swell (Norton, 2025) considers how memory can be mined for particular phrases and pronunciations to guide poetry.
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Toward the Sensuous Form: Transing the Essay
The author of Voice of the Fish: A Lyric Essay (Graywolf Press, 2022) reflects on what a trans essay might look like.
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Toward the Sensuous Form: Embracing New Forms of Knowing in the Essay
The author of Voice of the Fish: A Lyric Essay (Graywolf Press, 2022) considers what it would mean for the essay to embrace new kinds of meaning-making.
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Toward the Sensuous Form: Origins and Possible Trajectories of the Essay
The author of Voice of the Fish: A Lyric Essay (Graywolf Press, 2022) reflects on the ancient origins of the essay form.
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The Long and Rolling Line
The author of Ocean of Clouds (Knopf, 2025) considers the lineage of his own loping lines and encourages poets to try them.
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Plotting Form Ahead of Time
The author of Ocean of Clouds (Knopf, 2025) considers the benefits of planning elements of a poem before its composition.
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Catching the “Chune”
The author of Ocean of Clouds (Knopf, 2025) reflects on the practice of poetry as one of both composition and listening.
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Queering Language
The author of Bright Fear (Faber & Faber, 2023) and Flèche (Faber & Faber, 2019) explores what it means to write a self that “is in a perpetual state of becoming.”
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Writing Queerly
The author of Bright Fear (Faber & Faber, 2023) and Flèche (Faber & Faber, 2019) considers what it means to estrange a familiar motif in one’s writing.
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Reading Queerly
The author of Bright Fear (Faber & Faber, 2023) and Flèche(Faber & Faber, 2019) reflects on how queer traces in literature can open doorways of possibility.
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Writing Ambivalence
The author of no swaddle (University of Iowa Press, 2025) reflects on approaching uncertainty on the page.
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Situating the Self in a Lineage of Writers
The author of no swaddle (University of Iowa Press, 2025) considers the legacies and influences of authors engaged in similar forms and topics.
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Writing Sonnets on the Question of Motherhood
The author of no swaddle (University of Iowa Press, 2025) considers the value of both engaging with and refuting a traditional form.
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Writing on Grief: Robert Frost
The author of Indigo (Copper Canyon Press, 2020) reflects on the lessons Robert Frost offers us when writing about loss.
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Writing on Grief: The Practice of Coding
The author of Indigo (Copper Canyon Press, 2020) recommends writers use coding when trying to describe loss.
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Writing on Grief: Transforming Loss Into Art
The author of Indigo (Copper Canyon Press, 2020) reflects on how writers can turn grief into literature.
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Historical Details: Approach With Caution!
The author of Restitution (Regal House Publishing, September 2025) recommends writers refine their research and examine which details actually serve their characters and plots.
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