Essays Notable Articles

The Art of the Final Sentence

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For writers, the last sentences aren’t about reader responsibility at all -- it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to stop worrying about what comes next, because nothing does. No more keeping the reader interested, no more wariness over giving the game away. This is the best time for a writer to get real, to depict reality as they see it, without compromises, without fear.
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Essays Notable Articles

The Art of the Chapter

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You want to know how weird and deep my rabbit hole goes? I’ve developed what I’ll call an eccentricity about chapters.
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Annals of Japery Notable Articles

Pansexual Free-for-All: My Time As A Writer of Kindle Erotica

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All I had to do was be willing to remorselessly pump out paranormal pornography like nobody’s business. Could I accept this challenge?
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Essays Notable Articles

It’s Not You, It’s Us: Apartment Hunting in Brooklyn

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I couldn’t really picture myself living here. But I tried anyway. I had a premonition of standing in the middle of a pretty-decent sized kitchen, sautéing garlic shrimp for my blow-up girlfriend.
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Lists Notable Articles

Get to Work: On the Best Advice Writers Ever Received

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I recently spoke with a range of authors who shared the best piece of writing advice they ever received. Some answers were brief and memorizable, some were longer and drew me into the author’s world and creative process.
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Lists Notable Articles

Most Anticipated: The Great 2015 Book Preview

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Lists Notable Articles

Beyond Bookmarks: 10 Gifts For Readers

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For the past few years, The Millions has offered a holiday gift list for writers. This year we’d like to give readers their due, with a list of bookish treats. Because where would writers be without readers? Also, let’s face it: discriminating and avid readers can be as difficult to shop for as cranky writers.
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Notable Articles Year in Reading

A Year in Reading: 2014

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Notable Articles The Millions Interview

‘The Blank Screen Is the Enemy’: The Millions Interviews David Mitchell

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Realism, when done well, is more fantastical than fantasy.
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Notable Articles Reviews

The Art of “The Novel”

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I am going to try to convince you that The Novel is one of the most important works of both literary history and criticism to be published in the last decade.
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Essays Notable Articles

The Trouble with Writing

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The trouble with writing is that it is often a roller coaster pitching us between grandiosity and despair.
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Essays Notable Articles

The Magic Building Where English Majors Work: Making Sense of Creative Writing’s Job Problem

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When is the right time to tell aspiring writers about their job prospects? In graduate school? Before they even apply to graduate school? Or sooner than that even—in their first creative writing class? Never? Let them Google it because it’s just too depressing otherwise?
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Essays Notable Articles

Practical Art: On Teaching the Business of Creative Writing

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This is the inside joke of creative writing programs in America. We know creative writing doesn’t make money, and yet we continue to graduate talented writers with no business acumen. At best, it is misguided. At worst, it is fraudulent.
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Notable Articles Quick Hits

How to be James Joyce, or the Habits of Great Writers

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The attempt to unveil THE PROCESS shows how fascinatingly—almost theologically—opaque the origins of art really are.
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Essays Notable Articles

Italo Calvino’s Science Fiction Masterpiece

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Cosmicomics is that rarity among progressive texts: its premises are absurd and almost incoherent, yet the plot lines are filled with romance, drama, and conflicts that draw the readers deeper and deeper into the text.
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Lists Notable Articles

Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2014 Book Preview

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Lists Notable Articles

55 Thoughts for English Teachers

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You need to love words. You don’t need to love a certain type of book or a particular writer, but you need to love letters and phrases and the possibilities of language. You will spend most of your days dealing with words, and students can sense if words do not bring you joy.
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Essays Notable Articles

Thug: A Life of Caravaggio in Sixty-Nine Paragraphs

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He never had a chance. Three men held him down while a fourth sliced his face. Afterwards, he was almost unrecognizable. They could have killed him but they wanted him to live, bearing his scars for the rest of his life. Everyone would know what that meant.
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