The Ploughshares Round-down: Why “Don’t Feed the Trolls” Falls Short
Over the last two weeks, the internets have exploded with news about terrible comment sections and how to handle trolls. As writers, we know that since comment sections are where humanity goes to die (Ploughshares comments excepted of course), putting creative work online basically means exposing ourselves to the worst mankind has to offer. (Hooray!) Enter
Burnt Memories: Reading Gabriel García Márquez in Texas
It took every fiber of me not to rattle off a quick ditty about Gabo the night after he passed. I tried, of course, but then where do you stop? Fifteen thousand words? Twenty? In this digital age you’re late even if only by a day, which seemed appropriate
496 Words on Writing Flash Prose
1. Last year, I started writing a novel. Along the way, craving completion, I wrote and published seventeen pieces of flash prose. Instead of an epic, I accidentally created a flash chapbook. 2. Okay, maybe not accidentally. I took a break from the novel for a few months
The Power of Children’s Literature
Annie Cardi is the author of the new young adult book The Chance You Won’t Return (Candlewick Press), which has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, and also won the PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery Award in its manuscript form. Annie is a wonderful writer as well as an avid
Dancing with Myself
Anyone who has had a dance party alone in their room can attest to the helpfulness of an impromptu hoe-down. In her textbook Writing Fiction, Janet Burroway advises writers struggling with revision to “worry it and walk away,” but sometimes you need to dance away. The play involved might
Writing Lessons: Steve Lewis
In our Writing Lessons series, writers and writing students will discuss lessons learned, epiphanies about craft, and the challenges of studying writing. This week, we hear from Steve Lewis, a faculty member at the Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute. You can visit Steve’s website at www.stevelewiswriter.com. —Andrew Ladd, Blog Editor Back
The Ploughshares Round-Down: Do White Male Editors Only Publish White Male Books?
For most of the nonfiction books I sell, the editors I’m selling to have a lot of objective information on hand to guess at a title’s potential success: the author’s Twitter following, other books on the same subject, other books by the same author, the popularity of magazine articles
Lit GIFs: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
This is Arthur Dent: Human Resident, Planet Earth. One morning, contractors show up to plow his house over for a bypass. This is when his best friend, Ford Prefect, shows up and starts talking about The End of the World. They head to a bar (where else?) to talk Apocalypse
Mess With the Horns: A.L. Kennedy’s On Bullfighting
Under Review: On Bullfighting by A.L. Kennedy (2001, Anchor Books, 176 pages) Scottish novelist A.L. Kennedy’s exploration of Spain’s matador culture begins, jarringly, with the author in earnest contemplation of her own suicide. Fortunately she backs off the ledge. But the pervasive theme of On Bullfighting, and of bullfighting
Writers with Responsibilities: I’d Like to Click My Heels Three Times…
Dear Sally, I’m a single mother with four kids—everything from tweens to a would-be adult—and I just went back to work full-time. I tell people I’m a writer, but lately I’m a just a thinker, collecting details and perhaps inspiration but never transposing them to the page. I read