The Writing was a weekly craft Q&A newsletter from 2020-2021 for paid subscribers of The Reading. You can read these posts by making an account at The Reading.
Hi everyone, In the past few months, I’ve been working on an essay on close-reading and uncertainty in poetry. In the question of hateful ideologies and their transforming aesthetics, I ask Who can afford to be uncertain? Who will die if we’re wrong? There’s the kind of
Read moreHi everyone, Teaching this year has given me the gift and insight of how pivotal writing communities are for the uncertainty of our lives. The Writing is not going anywhere, but it is going to be smaller: a place for those of you who most want conversation and community wherever
Read moreThis Sunday, I announced the pre-launch for paid subscriptions of The Reading. My dream for The Writing is to bring community, conversation, and direct access to practical answers on what it means to be a writer today sustainably. I’m incredibly excited to expand this resource with you. After November
Read moreHi everyone, For those of you outside the US, the next thirty days in the US are going to be particularly harrowing. So this week’s question is all about hope: What strategies do you use when you have “nothing to say?” As usual, I’ll be here for 45
Read moreHi everyone, I’ve found that part of the interest with writers’ writing processes will land, too, on the ways that we are able to write, revise, and read depending on our technology of the day. So I thought it’d be fun to hear from everyone. In the spirit
Read moreHi everyone, As mentioned on Sunday, if you’d like to answer one question to help me nail down my next offerings or be on the pilot list for them, please do! The survey should work properly this time. :) To end this series on the MFA (#1, #2, #3, #4,
Read moreToday, I’ll be reading live at The Brooklyn Rail at 13:00 EST (e.g. right after this). Continuing the MFA series (#1, #2, #3, #4), this week’s question: Should I Get an MFA...if I want a writing community? Answer below. As usual, I’ll be here
Read moreHi everyone, This week’s question continues the MFA series (#1, #2, #3) and is inspired by a response by JinJin to the my first writing class thread on Twitter from a few weeks again. How do you negotiate the workshop gaze? This question speaks specifically to the ways that
Read moreHi everyone, Thanks for your patience as I missed my own deadline at noon today whilst sweatily unloading a moving trailer. I can proudly inform all of you that I own exactly 14 “small” boxes of books of equally heavy weight and they are all towering behind me in my
Read moreThe end of summer has finally reached me and I’m here a day earlier than usual because of my moving and new class schedule. Today, I’m continuing the MFA series. You can read the first installment here: Should I get an MFA if…I want structure around my
Read moreToday I’m kicking off a series of answers about and around getting MFAs. I tried to answer this week’s answer in one go and it ballooned into something longer than one of my Sunday letters (I hadn’t even finished). So, I’ll be answering this question in
Read moreThe school year’s getting started and I’m busy culling together a syllabus for my introduction to creative writing class at NYU. I took this question to Twitter earlier this month and was inspired by all the answers (and tips!) others gave. What about you? What do you wish
Read moreLast Saturday, my partner and I listened again to our Chani Nicholas horoscopes for 2020. Little did we know in January 2020 what would be in store for us this year. Thanks to Johanna for today’s question: How are you writing (or not) this year? How are you? I’
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