by Jessica Levine
In retrospect, I see the nine years I spent working on my Ph.D. as a similar kind of detour, a quest for a lineage that might give me a right to speak. Continue reading
Category Archives: Experience Required
The Desk Drawer Novel: A Tale of Urgency, Panic, and Truth
by Robin Black
A writer, of whatever age, needs to concern herself with the writing, its quality and its promise; and anxieties of any other kind . . . will always do more to hinder than to help. Continue reading
EXPERIENCE REQUIRED: “Up ‘Til Now”
by Lauren Francis-Sharma
Gone were the twenty-hour work days; now we were talking twenty-four hours. Seven days a week. The emotional, psychological, and physical needs of two human beings, non-stop. And the dream of being a writer seemed not only impossible but also, quite frankly, inconsequential. Continue reading
EXPERIENCE REQUIRED: The Story and The Telling
by Shawn Vestal
The gap between the story’s events and the telling — omissions, limitations, manipulations of time, voice, the metaphorical landscape — comes to feel, at least to me, . . . like the essence of what literature is. Continue reading
Getting Started, Keeping Going: Peter Ferry’s Tricks of the Trade
by Peter Ferry
I write on faith. I love E.L. Doctorow’s analogy that writing is like driving a car at night: you can’t see very far ahead, but you don’t have to, because by the time you get there, you’ll be able to see farther. Continue reading
EXPERIENCE REQUIRED: “Match Dot Comedy”
by Susannah B. Mintz
In March I met Kevin, a nonconformist with cats who studied English and psychology in college and didn’t seem put-off by my description of myself as a cranky bookworm. Continue reading
See It Then, See It Now
by Dena Santoro
Edward R. Murrow visited Johnstown on a snowy day in January, 1956. It was Bill’s ninth year, and his future wife Agnes’s ninth day at her job in television traffic. Continue reading
Bloom 