Some awesome writing prompts: click here.

Can I get a hallelujah?

The problem with creative writing programs, she says, is their obsession with craft. “What did craft ever try to say about the world, the human condition, or the search for meaning?” Ms. Batuman asks. “All it had were its negative dictates: ‘Show, don’t tell’; ‘Murder your darlings’; ‘Omit needless words.’ As if writing were a matter of overcoming bad habits — of omitting needless words.”

Click here.

And here.

And also here.

"100 Things About A Novel" by Alexander Chee, Part One: click here.

Part Two: click here.

Part Three: click here.

Amen, Sister

"Fall's Big (and Little) Books" by Marie Mutsuki Mockett: click here.

Gay Talese's outline for "Frank Sinatra Has A Cold": click here. My students would tell you how much I like seeing different colors of magic marker.

Just click here.

An interview with Brenda Miller: click here.

I love this: click here.

"The dynamism in a novel is dependent upon plot; the plot makes the thing go. The dynamism in a collection of linked short stories can, of course, hinge on plot. But it can also lie elsewhere—within the movement of the stories themselves; in subtle alterations in tone; in a change in perspective; in the ending of one story and the beginning of the next, so much more of a bump than a mere chapter ending can provide."
--from Clare Dederer's review of Amy Bloom's story collection Where the God of Love Hangs Out. For more, click here.