Lee Martin

On January 3 (we start our Winter Quarter quickly here at Ohio State), I’ll meet my MFA fiction workshop for the first time. I’ve been preparing my syllabus. In addition to the discussion of original fiction from the twelve MFA students in the room, we’ll take a look at stories by Tobias Wolff (“An Episode…

I’ve been teaching a fiction workshop this quarter designed especially for poets and nonfiction writers in our MFA program at Ohio State. In addition to its official course number, English 765B, I like to attach a subtitle: “Meet Your Best Friend, Mr. Right Margin.” That’s directed mainly toward the poets, of course, who sometimes have…

Not long ago in my creative nonfiction workshop, I found myself talking about the necessity of the generosity of the writer. I find this true, of course, no matter the genre, but I find it particularly true when we’re talking about memoir. We need to be generous enough to make room for the characters in…

It’s been an autumn of travel for me, having done readings in Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Ohio , and Tennessee, and it’s been so good to renew friendships and to start new ones. Here’s a compilation of where I’ve been and what’s happened on the road, just a glimpse of what it’s like to be on…

I’m reading Jean Thompson’s novel, The Year We Left Home, and today I came upon this passage: “But back home, I can look up and down just about any street and there’s people I’m either related to or I’ve known them all my life and my parents have known them and my grandparents knew their…

Tomorrow is the first day of Autumn Quarter classes at Ohio State, where I teach. I’m starting my 30th year as a teacher, eleven of them here at OSU, and each year, when it’s time to think about walking into that classroom the next day, I recall a story from some years back, when I…

When I began this blog, I promised I’d tell you the least you need to know about writing, publishing, teaching, and other stuff. Well, today’s entry gives you some of that “other stuff,” a bit of the culture from my native southeastern Illinois, where right now it’s the heart of chowder season. Not chowder as…

When I was teaching at the Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Writers’ Conference, I offered a class on narrative structure that used Stuart Dybek’s short-short story, “Sunday at the Zoo,” as an example. If you’re interested, you can find the story in the first edition of Sudden Fiction, edited by Robert Shapard and James…

I’m back from teaching in the Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Writers’ Workshop and I’ve been trying to get used to not having the stimulation of excellent readings by faculty and participants alike, thought-provoking craft talks, and the excitement of the daily workshop that I led. I had a group of six talented writers…

Okay, I confess. I never met a horrible pun or a corny joke that I can resist. The dumber the better. Q: What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor? A:  “Hey, where’s my tractor.” See what I mean? There’s something about the naked admission that the joke is stupid that wins me…