Goodbye Mr. Chips Archive

Origin Stories: Fiction by Prompt

Author: | Categories: Reading, Writing, Writing Advice No comments
How do great authors begin their fiction? With a line or a character, a memory or a mission? This year, as Ploughshares’s unofficial origin-story archivist, I’ll investigate. Because I’m a teacher, I started by looking for stories that grew out of writing assignments. Here’s what I found. 1. Amy

Literary Teachers and Their Lessons

Author: | Categories: Reading No comments
I have a new teaching job this fall, and so I’ve been thinking even more than usual about classrooms, and teachers, and the hold they have on our imaginations. It’s strange to realize, right before I walk into a classroom to teach, how clearly I can remember most of