The Writer

A LONG TIME AGO IN WHAT FEELS like a galaxy far, far away, I was a theater major at the University of Iowa. Occasionally, the department would bring in a star actor or playwright to talk to us about their careers, like the time actor Paul Winfield pa

By Beverly Rose MY GRANDFATHER BECAME MY LEgal guardian after tragedy made me mostly an orphan: a mother dead from childbirth and a disinterested dad. Leo, named after his mother’s favorite fruit peddler, was gruff, opinionated, fiercely protective,

IT CAN BE ARGUED THAT THE LITERary forces driving mainstream trends begin within the bold and fearless alliances between authors and small literary presses. With this dynamic in mind, one especially good way to load up your summer reading list is che

It’s been a year and a half since I undertook a mission to introduce myself, and you, to literatures we think get overlooked in the American literary landscape. I’ve met so many new writers I didn’t know of; read books that never would have crossed m

Last month, while researching for this column, I learned that veterans are a protected class in the United States, just like people of color, just like people with disabilities. That is to say, it is illegal to discriminate against someone because of

Professor Jessica Dobson teaches English at Norco College in Southern California. She has been teaching writing and composition to the incarcerated populated at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco since 2017. She’s currently a doctoral cand

It was a Wednesday night when I landed at the Seattle Airport for the 2023 AWP Conference, held March 8 through 11, at the Seattle Convention Center. Making my way that night to a hotel in the Capitol Hill area, I was reminded of the city’s reputatio

A writing conference is a perfect mix of all the ingredients you need to grow as a writer. It doesn’t matter if you are just beginning or have a thriving writing career; a good conference provides everything, and it all happens over the span of a few

In the powerful and lyrical essay “Swamp as Metaphor,” included in The Place Within, Florida author Harry Crews tells of lessons he learned as a young boy from Uncle Cooter about water’s power, its place in our lives. But Uncle Cooter also taught the

Even though many don’t offer payment and some are more popular than others, literary journals are a great way to get your writing’s foot in an editor’s door. Some writers may overlook smaller publications in order to concentrate on bigger projects, b

I recently asked a group of students to reread the drafts of memoirs they had been composing for the creative writing class I teach at Hunter College in New York City. And then I asked them to write a brief summary of what they thought was working an