Author name: admin1

1. Updike was my favorite writer when I first began to write fiction seriously in college. 2. I began a methodical study of Updike by reading everything he wrote in chronological order. Everything. Fiction, poetry, non-fiction, plays, etc. It was a lot, but I learned more from that than any workshop, MFA program or writing […]

“Obsession is a way of organizing our lives so we never have to deal with the hard part: the part that happens between two years old and dying.” – Geneen Roth I am a compulsive person. When I was in college, did I ever just drink one beer? No. I drank until I threw up,

Depending on how you look at it, my essay title is either inspired by Tony Hoagland’s wonderful collection of poems What Narcissism Means to Me or it’s a straight knockoff. If not every word in the title, then at least the spirit and the idea of it. Curiously, book titles aren’t fully protected under US

For many years I earned a living sculpting superheroes and cartoon characters: Batgirl, Superman, Jimmy Nuetron, Betty Boop, Darth Vadar, Big Bird, Bugs Bunny, Marge and Bart Simpson — hundreds of my original prototypes line the shelves in my studio. I graduated from Rhode Island School of Design, I didn’t study literature or attend a

This is what I always tell my students about writing: think of your story as a child. The infant idea comes to you, brand-new and half-formed, and you do all you can for it. You take its little hand and help it on its first teetering steps through the very first draft. You watch it

Put out my eyes, and I can see you still, Slam my ears too, and I can hear you yet; And without any feet can go to you; And tongueless, I conjure you at will. Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you And grasp you with my heart as with a hand;

Here is the story when you try to write your story. You want to. You need to. There is some ego involved but also something you genuinely would like to express. You try to use narrative to make sense. You try to use language to represent. But then you sit in front of the computer

About 15 years ago, I took a class with the well-known San Francisco editor Tom Jenks, who founded Narrative Magazine and worked with Raymond Carver. On the last day, each student had a 20-minute session with Tom in which to discuss his or her work. I didn’t want to spend the time talking about my book.

In the fiction writing courses that I have taught over the last eighteen years, at some point during the term, someone always brings up the topic of novels versus short stories. As in, why don’t short story collections get more respect among readers and the bigger publishers of the world (those, at any rate, that

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” – Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own Those words, first published in 1929, mock me here in 2013. While I do agree with Mrs. Woolf, I wonder what the woman who doesn’t have the resources to obtain