Photograph of Melissa Febos by Beowulf Sheehan I am beginning the new year by writing about the best craft book I read in 2022 because I want us—me and you too, dear reader—to carry this book with us not only into 2023, but into the rest of our lives. Body Work: The Radical Power of … Read More
Published: A Craft Guide
Some friends of mine over at Kelp Journal got together and wrote Published: A Craft Guide, a series of essays by current and former Kelp Journal editors on crafting fiction submissions that stand out. Edited by Kelp Journal managing editor A.E. Santana, Published offers essays on topics including structure, point of view, dialogue, characters, suspense, voice, genre, and living with … Read More
Writing from Prompts
A half dozen Christmases ago, my daughter Melissa gave me a book called 642 Things to Write About. At the time, I had never used writing prompts, except once during a dark November when I was seriously stuck and in danger of falling far short of my NaNoWriMo word count. The prompt I used then … Read More
The Reading Writer
Here in no particular order are five of my favorite books on the writing craft and the writing life: Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern I love the structure of this book, as well as its wisdom. The book is organized into four sections which are fairly self-explanatory: The Shape of Fiction. This section is … Read More