We writers pay a lot of attention to first lines. They’re supremely important — for the reader, they are the opening impression, the first glimpse not only at the story but also at the style of the story and even (dare I say it in this age of modern criticism) at the author. For theContinue reading “Last lines”
Tag Archives: writing
10 tips on writing from the Chronicle of Higher Ed
One of my professors from graduate school posted on her Facebook a link to an article, “10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly,” in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It’s a strange title, partly because the URL truncates the title to read “10-Tips-on-How-to-Write-Less,” which is precisely the opposite of this article’s purpose: The tipsContinue reading “10 tips on writing from the Chronicle of Higher Ed”
A Writer’s Notebook: Prose haiku
Technically, this is just a very short short-short, the flashiest of flashes (to borrow a phrase from Rowan Atkinson in Love Actually), but I’ll explain below why I call it a “prose haiku.” She sat on a thick window sill outside the store and tucked into tiny chicken wings, so small they looked like friedContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Prose haiku”
New publication
A bit of news: A short while ago–the day before my birthday, in fact–I got word from Red Fez that they wanted to publish my story “Kamikaze.” Today, the issue went online. It’s also chock full of other great stories and poems, so make sure to check out the whole issue. For links to someContinue reading “New publication”
Interview with Darin Bradley, author of Noise
Darin Bradley‘s apocalyptic novel Noise hit bookshelves, both physical and virtual, today. So I thought I’d ask Darin a few questions about his novel, the apocalypse, and writing in general. The resulting e-mail conversation, which has spanned the past few weeks, has turned out to be very long, which is a good thing, because DarinContinue reading “Interview with Darin Bradley, author of Noise”
A Writer’s Notebook: “Casting a Wide Net”
This week, another exercise from Scott McCloud’s Making Comics. In this exercise, McCloud asks us to create a cast of characters that share one trait (from a list of traits–see below) but are different in at least four other ways. These academics are my four characters (in the order I wrote them). Sandra: 45, aContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: “Casting a Wide Net””
A Writer’s Notebook: Magnet poetry
Caveat emptor: This is not good poetry. Blame the magnets. My velvet yesterday surrounds today in translucent smoke, you in corduroy angling for another cut of tea, steam a prisoner behind your glasses, the naked smile that tugs one side of your lips, the memory of the porcelain morning light over the ocean. We neverContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Magnet poetry”
A Writer’s Notebook: Scene or short-short?
Sometimes you just write. This is what I wrote. There is no particular exercise, but I’ll explain below where this comes from. He didn’t mow the hay field, or rake it into rows or bale it into the wide wheels, bound in plastic, that baked in the sun now. But he owned the aftermath, theContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Scene or short-short?”
A Writer’s Notebook: The great outdoors
This is a fairly old-school, simple exercise, but it’s one I keep returning to again and again. But as usual, more on that below. I’ve never seen the skies in other vast states, like, say, Wyoming or Montana, but I’ve seen skies in California, skies in New York, skies in Wisconsin and Florida. And itContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: The great outdoors”
The short and long of things….
I just received an e-mail telling me one of my short stories made the shortlist for finalists in the short-story category of the Faulkner Wisdom Competition (run by Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society down in New Orleans). Then, immediately after that, I received another e-mail that I made the semi-finals for the novella category of theContinue reading “The short and long of things….”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 