“The First Time I. . . .”—A Writing Prompt
It’s that time again, the start of a new school year. Today, I was on campus for our MFA picnic and orientation. I’d just entered Denney Hall via a side door that was open when I saw two young women peering through the glass doors at the front of the building. I opened the door…
Read MoreThe Toys We Never Had: A Writing Prompt
This post is late today because I got back yesterday after teaching a week-long novel workshop at the Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Writers’ Conference. While there, I spent some time talking about the importance of finding a way to feel the emotional complexity of a character by tapping into some complicated moments from…
Read MoreA Writing Community Is a Home
For a while now, I’ve been obsessed with watching YouTube videos of people hearing particular songs for the first time. I like seeing them react to songs I remember from my teenage years: Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” Jim Croce’s “Operator.” The listeners’ reactions—usually ones of…
Read MoreThe Artful Use of a Wound
When I was in the fourth grade, my teacher told me I had no imagination. She’d asked us to draw something appropriate for Christmas, and I’d drawn a nativity scene—Joseph and Mary and the Christ child. My teacher, when she saw it, wrinkled her nose. “Clearly,” she said, “you have no imagination.” I’ll admit I…
Read MoreCharacters and Pressure
My wife Cathy has spent this weekend canning and freezing: blackberry jam, bread and butter pickles, and corn. I’ve lent a hand: toting, shucking, mashing, cleaning. My mother spent her summers preserving food, so it’s a nostalgic thing for me to listen to the jar lids popping as they seal, the hot jars cooling, the…
Read MoreThe Case of the Missing Shirt: Some Tips for Writing Narratives
“You put it in the suitcase, didn’t you?” my wife Cathy says. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me,” I say. “You have got to be kidding.” (I rarely begin a narrative with dialogue, but in this case it seems called for, given the urgency of the situation). The “it” in question is my favorite shirt. It’s…
Read MoreThe Enduring Voice: COVID’s Effect on Writing
Someone recently asked me how I think COVID-19 has influenced writing. Specifically, this person wondered whether I was seeing stories from workshop participants that deal with “the years of living in fear and losing people to the virus,” or whether everyone was avoiding thinking about the pandemic and writing uplifting stories. I want to be…
Read MoreTurning a Premise: Using Opposites to Make Our Fiction Memorable
Today, my wife Cathy and I drove out to our favorite produce stand to see what we might find for our traditional Sunday evening country supper. New potatoes, locally grown green beans, sweet corn, and an orange tomato. The first time we found Bambi’s Produce Market, we did so by happy accident. We’d been driving…
Read MoreWriting Toward Understanding
I just got back from a family reunion in southeastern Illinois, and next month I go to my fiftieth high school class reunion. The events have me thinking about a writing exercise that should work for both fiction and creative nonfiction. Maybe you’ve had the experience of being close to someone and then drifting apart,…
Read MoreThe Shapes of Things: Letting Content Determine Form
When I worked with my father on our farm, I often found myself frustrated with a task I couldn’t perform—a rusted nut that couldn’t be turned, a grease zerk that was hard to reach, a saw blade that kept catching. When I’d say I couldn’t do something, my father would say, “Can’t never did nothing.”…
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