Category Archives: Reading as writers

Here are some examples of prose poems. These are some poems for workshopping and here are some more. These are the first fiction fragments we’ll workshop. These are the second. Here are a third  and fourth for our consideration. Remember, you need to … Continue reading →

See the variations in form here, from the Oxford Book of Sonnets, and this couplet sonnet, “The Insusceptibles” by Adrienne Rich. Then the long sunlight lying on the sea Fell, folded gold on gold; and slowly we Took up our … Continue reading →

Consider how the lines of this poem focus/control the reader’s attention/experience. At what rate does information arrive? Why? How do the lines end? How is enjambment used? When is it used? What gives the poem closure? What work does the … Continue reading →

Little know fact: Shakespeare wrote “The Big Lebowski”: http://runleiarun.com/lebowski/.

I finished Lance Olsen’s Freaknestlast week. Very interesting. It’s easy to call it experimental speculative fiction. It takes place, for example, in a future full of astonishingly Godish technology that doesn’t seem to have solved a single enduring human problem. … Continue reading →

Two quotations from “Silent Movie” by Charles Baxter in his collection A Relative Stranger:   She was tired of men’s voices, of their volume and implacability. She had the idea that she would spend the day not listening to any … Continue reading →

I finished Cryptonomicon probably two weeks ago. An excellent novel. It ends with an excerpt from Stephenson’s next book and with a system for encoding information. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, if I remember correctly, includes in its narrative … Continue reading →

I’m really enjoying Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson. There are endless lessons to learn as a writer from the book. Here are four: Don’t be afraid to expand and explore. Rather than Netherland, which demonstrates the virtues of a tight focus, Cryptonomiconexplores … Continue reading →