Part One By WTP Writer Richard Wertime Woven Tale Press writer Richard Wertime reflects on the craft of fiction in an ongoing series of craft notes “I believe that metaphor alone can give a sort of eternity to style.” —Marcel Proust, Chroniques What can metaphor do for us? We should ask, in the same breath,…
Category: on prose writing
Trying to Get It Right: The Aftermath of the Skirmish
The Craft of Fiction Writing By WTP Writer Richard Wertime Richard Wertime reflects on the Crafting of his story “Soccer,” published in WTP Vol. IX #3 “He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars.” —William Blake, Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion James Joyce once confided to a friend, while…
Strategic Clutter and Decoys
And Other Fictional Strategies By WTP Writer Richard Wertime Richard Wertime reflects on the Crafting of his story “Soccer,” published in WTP Vol. IX #3 “Setting in fiction ought always veer toward metonymy.” —Novelist Richard Bausch In my short story, “Soccer,” published in April’s WTP, a mid-life father joins his teen son, Kevin, in an…
Writing for the Long Haul
Creative Longevity as a Desire for the Unobtainable By Ronald J. Pelias, WTP Guest Writer With a wrinkled wave of years washing over me, I wonder why I am still trying to create, still trying to make words do what I would like them to do. You’d think that after all these years of effort…
Still Talking
The Abiding Voice of Toni Morrison By Lisa Zeiger, WTP Guest Writer “You hear the voice of the dead. They’re still talking and they want to be heard. And that, to me, is irresistibly interesting.” —Gore Vidal, on essays, from a BBC interview with Melvyn Bragg, c. 2008 Whenever I read an author I particularly…
Paul Bowles and Covid-19
On Paul Bowles: Living the End By WTP Guest Writer Lisa Zeiger “One of these days the future will be here, and you won’t be ready for it.” ― Paul Bowles, The Spider’s House I have wanted to write about Paul Bowles for a long time, and because he is a writer who explores endings,…
Character Development
Shoptalk: A Prose Central Series By DeWitt Henry, Prose Editor I evolved shoptalk or notebook sheets during my teaching of fiction workshops, which proved helpful to me and to students. I asked them to ask themselves about character, plot, setting, dialogue, sensory imagery, sentimentality, translation, simultaneous actions and other aspects of craft. But foremost of…
On Aphorisms
From Richard Kostalanetz’s A Writer’s Torah A Selection by DeWitt Henry, WTP Prose Editor Individual entries on Richard Kostelanetz’s work in several fields appear in various editions of Readers Guide to Twentieth-Century Writers, Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature, Contemporary Poets, Contemporary Novelists, Postmodern Fiction, Webster’s Dictionary of American Writers, The HarperCollins Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature,…
Adverbicide
Must Writers Eradicate Adverbs? By Ann S. Epstein, WTP Guest Writer Ann S. Epstein writes novels, short stories, memoir, craft articles, and book reviews. Her novels include On the Shore (Vine Leaves Press, 2017), Tazia and Gemma (2018), and A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (Alternative Book Press, 2018). Her stories and nonfiction work appear…
Reflections by Tillie Olsen
“I’ve never had, except once, that happy time when something writes itself…” Transcribed by DeWitt Henry, Prose Editor These reflections were from a recording of Tillie Olsen’s reading at Emerson College, MA, March 23, 1974. I first read Tillie Olsen as part of editing Ploughshares in the 1970s. Sam Lawrence, whom I had contacted as…
The Story Teller and the Telling
“Story is you and me. Story connects us to each other and to the world.” By Ruth Knafo Setton, WTP Guest Writer Every night for the past thousand years, under moon and stars in the Djma el Fnaa, the fabled square of Marrakech, a man tells a story. Wearing a white turban and djellabah, he…
The Minefield and the Soul
Notes on Identity and Literature By David Mason, WTP Guest Writer “The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys to the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.” —Czeslaw Milosz “When I was a…