Tag: fiction

  • Structure and Delivery

    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?

    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 Insight of a Coach

    The Insight of a Coach

    Asking questions is part of Elizabeth Stark‘s job as a writing coach. A primary question she addresses for her clients is, “What’s the experience of reading this work?” The experience of reading a work cannot be easily, if at all, accessed by the writer or author of the work. And if so, the writer must…

  • The Treasure of Reading for Discovery

    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 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…

  • To Earn a MFA or Not?

    To Earn a MFA or Not?

    In my recent interview with novelist, Thrity Umrigar, we discussed the value of attaining a graduate degree in creative writing. Umrigar, holds a Ph.D. in Literature, teaches creative writing and African American Literature at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio.

  • 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