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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

How many of you want to hear me talk about poop? Don’t worry. I’m not going to talk about poop. My sister, though — she talks about poop. In fact, when she’s about to start dating a guy, she gives them a litmus test. She says, “I poop. Do you have a problem with that?”

1. I have never read a book on the “craft” of fiction. 2. That’s a lie: I taught one last year. His discussion of dialogue was so inane I stopped reading. Based on one chapter. 3. This makes me a lazy reader. 4. Craft is stolen. 5. I am a thief. 6. I am rarely

When I drove 3,000 miles across the country, carried my things (an air mattress, a card table, a camp chair, a suitcase of books, a suitcase of clothes, some toiletries) into my grandma’s empty house and pulled out my laptop computer, I thought the words would begin to magically pour out of me. There were

I want to be fifteen pounds lighter. I want a few more digits in my checking account balance. I want to make love with her, the one over there sipping the electric blue cocktail, but I want to make love with her, too, the one I see twice a year whose letters always smell of