Tag: craft
-
Loving Our Characters
American Buddhist nun, Pema Chödrön, writes in “Comfortable with Uncertainty” that, “…When we start to meditate or work with any kind of spiritual discipline, we often think that somehow we’re going to improve [ourselves], which is a subtle kind of aggression against who we are…Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become…
-
Loosening Up
I tried many exercises in the various writing groups in which I participated before entering graduate school, and working towards earning my MFA. None left an impression, or stuck with me. This is not to say the exercises held no merit. Instead my focus lay severely on learning to write, as in craft a decent…
-
Structure and Delivery
The artist must grasp the importance of structure as it pertains to the art form she or he seeks to create. Along with an appreciation of structure, crafting entertaining and engaging stories also involves a deep understanding of psychology.
-
What is Story?
Jerry Cleaver writes in Immediate Fiction, that story is a heightened sense of reality. Concentrated with the essence of reality, those essentials that render it authentic, and plausible through character descriptions and the crafted context, story is not reality as we know it.
-
The Treasure of Reading for Discovery
“Responding to the writing, first at a reader.” That is what author and writing coach, Elizabeth Stark provides the writers, and published authors she coaches. Having earned a MFA in Writing, and seen her novel, “Shy Girl,” published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in addition to having taught creative writing at Hobart and William Smith…
-
The Value of Earning a MFA
The jewel in the crown of my experience in earning my MFA lay not in achieving a marked improvement in my writing. While my MFA thesis went on to be published by a small press, the greatest gift I gave myself in undergoing the rigorous and rugged course of study, was the habit I developed…
-
Radio Show | Thrity Umrigar and the Timeless Themes of Her Stories
Journalist, author, literary critic and writing teacher Thrity Umrigar discusses he timelessness and simplicity of her stories along with her newest release, The Weight of Heaven. So tune in. http://www.umrigar.com/space_between.html The Space Between Us If Today Be Sweet Bombay Time First Darling of the Morning: Selected Memories of an Indian Childhood