Friday free for all
A goodie bag of reading and craft
Happy Friday, friends! It’s the very last Friday of March (a good one? Blessings if you celebrate!) and I got you a smorgasbord! But first…
Announcements
There are still spots in the free storytelling offering for underrepresented voices (you can also read more it about here), which starts April 18 in Carrboro, N.C. Local folks, please circulate widely!
If you are considering blasting off to Jupiter with me, applications close April 12th!
I’ll be giving a craft talk on May 7th entitled How to Build Complex Characters to Drive Plot/Story. Registration doesn’t open till April 12th, but mark your calendar—it’ll be full of insight and exercises to kick your characters and plot up several notches.
Some things to read
On the craft front, I think you should subscribe to Rebecca Makkai’s Substack, which is both very funny (read “What’s the best way to order a paperback?) and also full of very smart things about writing craft and tools.
She recently wrote two pieces on interiority I think are essential reading: Interior(ity) Design Fails and Go Deep! I had a graduate school professor who was all about POV—every critique of every piece of writing referred back to POV, which he thought was the driving force of all successful and compelling fiction. I’m not sure I’m as adamant as he is, but I do have a lot of opinions about POV, some of which you’ll see when I get around to writing about Lessons in Chemistry, which I finally read…
Also on the craft front, I want to recommend Craft Talks, a FANTASTIC webinar series run by Allison K. Williams & Sharla Yates. Every week, an informed, wise person gives a 60-90 minute webinar that is always super well done and thought provoking. These range from writing technique and craft to the business of publishing and are $15 if you register in advance, $25 if you don’t. The webinars are Wednesday afternoons, but you get the replay and slides and have a month to watch it.
Ready for a few reads?
Start with One Rule from a Working Life by Nina Gaby, a super short and gut punch-y piece of flash nonfiction. I read it, like, twelve times and suggest you do the same.
On my way to retreat, I drove past a lot of markers of spring: blooming forsythia, just-born lambs, trees beginning to leave. Four years ago, during one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking springs I ever experienced, I wrote Talking to the Birds. Thanks, as always, for reading.
Your Blue Ridge piece instantly recalls the darkest days of 2020 and 2021 in a strange way. The words and images, the tralalas and purple wisteria, delighting but reminding of the hollow feeling of those days. It’s a good piece to hold onto.
Such great suggestions here! Also, loved the "Talking to the Birds" piece. A powerful flashback to the scariest times of the pandemic and a beautiful reminder that nature, herself, never paused. If anything we gave her the space to breathe and stretch a bit more. Beautifully written.