Posts Tagged ‘Teaching’
Gatsby and the End of Summer
Tomorrow, I leave bright and early for Vermont which explains why I’m posting this today. For the past thirteen years, I’ve taught at the Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Writers’ Conference. I often teach a workshop in the novel, and when I do, I ask my participants to read The Great Gatsby. That novel…
Read MoreA Day in the Life of a Writer Who Also Teaches
For those of us who write novels, at least from my perspective, it’s important to live in the world of the novel with some degree of consistency while the writing is underway. Leaving the writing for stretches of time makes it hard to sustain the momentum that writing long form narratives requires. When you teach,…
Read MoreTeaching and Revising
I’m leading a fiction workshop this week—a good warmup for another academic year about to begin—and it occurs to me that the way I approach the discussion about a manuscript may offer a useful scheme for those interested in strategies for revising a first draft. My custom is to first consider—and to invite my workshop…
Read MoreBravery and Empathy
On Friday evening, my wife and I had the privilege of attending the capstone event for the Young Writers Workshop that we have at Ohio State University each summer. I believe it’s been about nine summers now. I remember closing the deal with our generous donor when I was directing the creative writing program back…
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