writing Archive
Violence Against Women in Fiction
Four of us writers were critiquing each other’s novellas which all happened to have female protagonists. Three of the protagonists were victims of sexual assault, which then caused these characters to suddenly and completely change. One of those protagonists became mentally unbalanced and faded away, another was rescued by
The Anti-Ekphrastic: Art Inspired By Text
Writers often respond to visual art, a form known as Ekphrastic prose or poetry, and most famously as John Keats’ “Ode to a Grecian Urn.” But what happens when the form is inverted? The anti-ekphrastic takes many forms: The Futurists were the first to create sound poetry, or the
Presto!: A comparison of Magical Reveals in Fiction
A friend and I were recently talking about weird fiction. We were trying to figure out when the best time to make the “magical reveal” would be in a story. Should it be in the very first few lines so a reader knows what they’re getting into? Should it
Women in Refrigerators
Fifteen of us were watching Colin Farrell talking fast and sweet at a woman who communicated almost entirely by lowering her head, raising her eyes, and simpering. This was a few months ago and I was in a playwriting seminar with a well-known playwright that I had never heard
On and Of the Page: The Life–Art Collapse
A few years ago at a conference, I read a section from my long poem “Sublimation” in which the speaker describes a miscarriage that, in its vicious pain and effusions, wakes her up in the middle of the night. After the reading, as I was mingling my way toward
The Required Pain and Suffering: Writing and Love
What, if anything, does writing foreclose in life or between people? Despite probably a million compelling counter examples, famous and anecdotal, to the Plath/Hughes model of artistic-romantic implosion, a master narrative about the impossibility of loving writers and loving while a writer simply…persists. It buttresses the imagined partition between
Writ in Water: Storytelling on the Rez
I ask about water. Water in the West, water in the desert, water that saves and water that kills. Water on a tribal reservation: water for ranches, water for livestock, water hauled hundreds of miles by truck, water for uranium mining, water for ceremonies and legends, water for drinking.
Out of the Blue and Onto the Page: How Translation Rekindled My Passion for Writing
When my mother, born in America to Israeli parents, first met my father in Tel Aviv, she said she knew he was right for her because he was an American living in Israel. As a young woman who grew up in transit—constantly being moved around between the two countries—she
A Writer Writer: The Writing That Counts
In an episode of HBO’s Girls titled “Free Snacks,” aspiring writer Hannah Horvath lands a job producing “advertorial” content at GQ. Characteristically sharp and observant, she immediately brainstorms circles around her coworkers; at this rate, they suggest, she could really make a name for herself. But Hannah isn’t interested.
It Never Rains on National Day: an interview with writer Jeremy Tiang
Jeremy Tiang is a fiction writer, playwright, and translator from Singapore. His short story collection It Never Rains on National Day was published by Epigram Books in 2015, and is available at Epigram Books’ website. He lives in Brooklyn and was recently featured in the Singapore Writers Festival. We caught