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Experiments in Revision, Final Reflections

by Niki Selken
You know how it feels to write or make a first draft of something, then rework it until it shines like the top of Chrysler Building? You know how you kind of want to burn that first draft, so that no one will ever know the embarrassing wreckage of over-obvious, trite, and self-indulgent. »

Journalism to Fiction and Self-Publishing: An Interview with Ed Pilolla

My experience writing my first book was overwhelmingly one of joy. However, there was a substantial amount of suffering that was also involved. There’s always going to be suffering in any kind of work that you learn something through. And I learned story-structure with The Glitch. And I rewrote it—I mean I must have rewritten it 10 to 15 times.. »

Experiments in Revision, Part 4

Lisa McCool-Grime
Senior Poetry Editor
Synthesis: This is not so much an act of combining as it is an act of harmonizing. Which parts of the previous drafts have shown themselves to be extraneous and unnecessary? Which parts augment and support one another? What is the best flow for these remaining moments? What connective tissue must. »

Experiments in Revision, Part 3

Lisa McCool-Grime
Senior Poetry Editor
In this series we have thus far presented a long, action-loaded rough draft and then a total scrap-and-revise, tanka-inspired revision. This week’s installment is a list poem—a sister-shadow poem heavy with nouns; a counterpoint to the verb-heavy first draft. Here Niki Selken makes a descriptive list of things her narrator encountered. »

Experiments in Revision, Part 2

Lisa McCool-Grime
Senior Poetry Editor
Tanka is a Japanese form that can be roughly approximated in English with five lines using a syllabic pattern of 5-7-5-7-7. When I first began working with it, I found it to be an amazingly tidy container for difficult to contain emotions. So in reading Niki’s first draft, I immediately thought of. »

Experiments in Revision, Part 1

Lisa McCool-Grime
Senior Poetry Editor
In 2007, I was visiting my friend Owen at his art show: portraits on the grandest scale done in aerosol on 8′ x 8′ panels. It was the last hour of the last day of the Durham Art Walk in North Carolina. When all of the passers by stopped passing by, I. »

Note from the Editor

Over the next few months you will read work from our latest reading period (October 1, 2011-December 1, 2011). It is thanks to your enthusiasm as readers and the quality of work you continue to send as submitters, that we keep doing this. Thanks to you, our current collection is without doubt more impressive, more raw, more bright, and more us than any. »

Daily Moments: Getting Started

In the age of the Twilight Saga and Harry Potter, it can be a bit daunting to sit down at a blank page. After all, who doesn’t want to write a series that becomes a world-wide phenomenon? Dreams should be big, but sometimes all we have–to begin with, especially–are small moments. As writers, it’s our responsibility to show the world what these moments can do. In any genre, these little glimpses of reality can be used as tales of their own, or they can be used to springboard into something. »

Love and the political epiphany

Aren’t you tired of reading article after article that does nothing but lay the blame of our faltering country at the feet of the opposing political party? Valid or not, it is redundant and counterproductive. Aren’t we all tired of the name calling, the bomb throwing, the gotcha moments and the general attitude of us versus them? Exactly where has this gotten us? As if any of us truly believe that all Democrats want to spend the country into Armageddon and that all Republicans want your ailing grandma to die in the street. Maybe you disagree, but I find this type of rhetoric lazy. Sure, people are going to disagree on politics. In fact, we should disagree! Passionate, open-minded disagreement is essential and it has the potential to “produce higher levels of political engagement, tolerance, and compromise among competing viewpoints.” Don’t believe me, read. »

The Trials and Triumphs of Editing

Greetings from the Poetry department!

We’re coming to the end of what quickly became our largest submission cycle ever. To those of you still waiting for a response, I promise we are working as hard as we can…

It would be a lot easier if most of the submissions sucked. Unfortunately, you folks are pretty damn good poets.
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Writing from the Outdoors

It’s true that most writing is done by a person whose bottom is sitting in a chair, whose fingers are striking the keys, and not outside ambling through nature enjoying summer’s bounty. We find sources of inspiration in different areas: love, anger, hate or beauty. I tend to get my creative hat on in the woods, or on the sea, or in a busy Italian cafe before a perfect pizza. Places connect me to stories and places are often the part of the story that stays with me, after I have reluctantly closed the book or watched the credits scroll. Setting is a part of the writing craft that gets at best second or third billing, but is crucial in creating a world that we enter, and then hate to. »

Crossing-Over: On Writing Poetry for the First Time

by Magda Makonnen
So you decide to start writing poetry. You’ve been writing fiction or non-fiction for some time, but this will be your first time committing to writing verse. Where do you begin?

I know crossing-over is no easy task, except for those special few who seem to do it all. How many times have I heard a. »