The Writer March 2013

AS WE WERE PREPARING this issue of The Writer, our editorial team gathered stories about craft and markets and trends and publishing. All worthy topics. After all, these coordinates are at the heart of our mission to support writers in their profession and passion for the business and art of writing. So it’s all here for you: the editorial climate for short fiction, ideas for expanding characters through food references and tips for tweeting at conferences, protecting your computer files and developing your relationships with editors. And as always, our market guide. But I noticed a subtler theme emerging as I read the conversations between novelists Susanna Moore and Glen Duncan, and between nonfiction writer Tracy Kidder and his editor and collaborator Richard Todd, and also in my conversation with…

In a courtyard, eight writers bend over their notebooks, pens flashing in the sudden sunlight breaking through the branches of stately Sitka spruce trees. Off in the forest, a Swainson’s thrush repeats a haunting melody. A breeze meanders through the courtyard, bringing with it the salt scent of the ocean below. This is what a writing class looks like at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Otis, Ore. It’s an intoxicating blend of wise instruction and quiet creative practice in a coastal forest that many writers return to again and again. Jalene Case is executive director of Sitka; since 2008, she has worked in the weathered, many-windowed office that opens onto the courtyard and has witnessed dozens of writing workshops and courses on art, ecology and natural history.…

“You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog as large as myself that my father bought me. They are better than human beings, because they know but do not tell,” wrote poet Emily Dickinson. The way people react to animals can be very revealing. Pets are often flawless reflections of their owners. Does your story include animals? If so, what do they reveal about your characters? What do they know but do not tell? Try assigning the pet a narrative or an action that illuminates your character. See more writing prompts at writermag.com.…

A work of “literary genius” from a young writer is a big deal. But older writers sometimes miss out on the attention mill. To address this youth-worship, the website Bloom (www.bloom-site.com) promotes literature from the other end of the spectrum, highlighting work by writers such as Harriet Doerr, Daniel Orozco and Bram Stoker who published their first major work around or after the age of 40. “By focusing too much on youth when bestowing awards and recognition, we miss out — we readers and we writers and we critics, that is,” says founding editor Sonya Chung. Kate Chopin, Toni Morrison and Isak Dinesen were late bloomers. Morrison was the youngest of the four to publish, finishing her first novel The Bluest Eye in 1970 at the age of 39. Whether…

How do I write description so it seems as if it’s coming from the character? Isn’t description just a way to help the reader “see” something? IF YOU’RE WRITING FROM within a character’s perspective, then everything should be filtered through that character’s unique viewpoint. The human experience is complex, and as a result, a lot of factors influence any given moment. Let’s say your character is looking at a tree. No two characters are going to experience that tree in exactly the same way. Both characters may notice the prominent physical characteristics: the golden hue of the broad leaves, the jagged bark and the one low branch that is stripped bare. However, each character is also going to see the tree through a personal lens of emotion, experience and state…

Caryl Phillips is a novelist, essayist, playwright and professor of English at Yale University. He is the author of 14 books of fiction and nonfiction, and his many honors include the James Tait Black Prize, the PEN Beyond Margins Award (now the PEN Open Book Award) and an honorary fellowship at Oxford University. Later this year, The New Press will publish Phillips’ latest book, Color Me English: Selected Essays. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I learned about writing was not to read reviews or interviews. What others publicly think about your work (or perhaps even you) is out of your control. A good review will obviously create a buoyant feeling of happiness; a bad review can send you plummeting into a depression. Riding this roller coaster of emotions is not good…