Memoir: the Personal vs. the Universal By Contributing Editor Richard Gilbert “Demons haunt your pages because they already exist.”—Dani Shapiro “Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.”—Henry David Thoreau Neat sentiment, Henry David, and it seems apt for writer Dani Shapiro, who has…
Tag: writing
Site Review: Writers' Houses
Where Do Writers Live? By Angelica Gonzalez, WTP Editorial Assistant At the end of August, the internet was buzzing with the news of I, Too, Arts Collective, an organization rallying to turn the now-vacant home of Langston Hughes into an artists’ haven. The former homes of literary icons can have a profound—even religious—effect on writers…
Book Review: Versed by Rae Armantrout
Judging by the Blurb By Joyce Peseroff, Contributing Editor I’m writing for the first time about a book I haven’t finished yet. My friend Sharon Bryan recommended Rae Armantrout’s Versed, and I’m enjoying a precision as sharp and startling as the plunge of a needle in Armantrout’s spare, tight lines. Who expects “mass market” to follow…
Literary Spotlight: Dewitt Henry
What is a Jerk? “Maybe you, citizen, should be a jerk. Jerks get where they are going.” –By Dewitt Henry this appears in Vol. IV #7 A jerk is a chisler in the traffic jam, say on the Long Island expressway. Three lanes immobile, motors revving, heat shimmering, the cars barely rolling, and the line stretching out…
Interview: Jean Valentine
“I want [my poetry] to take off the diver’s mask.” Interview by Nancy Mitchell, Plume Poetry Originally published in Plume Poetry. Saturday morning, June 4, 2016, Schumaker Pond, Salisbury, Maryland. Our conversation began the last morning of Jean’s four-day visit to our house in Maryland. Because we spent most of our time in the company…
Lessons Learned in a Literary Office
by Editor-in-Chief Sandra Tyler As The Woven Tale Press continues to evolve, it has captured the intrigue of new contributing editors, including DeWitt Henry, the founding editor of the award-winning literary journal Ploughshares. Back 30 years ago, while interning for him as an editorial assistant, I learned the hard lesson I went on to indoctrinate…
Something New — our WTP blog!
Submit your Reviews by Sandra Tyler, Editor-in-Chief From its inception three years ago, WTP has sought to grow Web traffic for noteworthy artists and writers, in our magazine, by having readers click on the name credit to learn more about a contributor; we also deepen these connections to our contributors, by exploring the creative process…
Pulling From the Screen
Writing: The Cinematic Technique By Sarah Chauncey One of the benefits of having worked in so many mediums – print, television, stage, online, stand-alone interactive and film – is that I’ve learned a variety of storytelling techniques transferable between platforms. The combination of having been a stage manager, TV writer/producer and film critic contributed to my becoming…
Fictional Characters and Autobiography Part 2
Five Approaches to Revising Character See part one here By Elissa Field Again, not all authorial characters are broken — but this post addresses the situation where characters drawn closely from the author come across as flat. Each of the following presents a possible source of the problem and how to address it. See-through narrator: beginner’s error? In…
Fictional Characters and Autobiography– Part 1
Writing Character: One Most Like Yourself By Elissa Field The impetus for this article arose from a small tangent during a fabulous workshop I participated in with author Ann Hood. Among stories I’ve worked on in the past, I knew who my trickiest, most elusive or least successful characters were, but hadn’t noticed a pattern until an offhand comment…
WTP Writer: Robert Peake
Inspiring Other Poets “I want Poet Tips to be so successful in helping people connect meaningfully to the language arts that I don’t have to overhear the phrase, I don’t get poetry ever again.” Interview with poet Robert Peake How did you come to writing poetry? The creative arts were always encouraged in my family; I…
Retreat West
Creating the Writing Retreat I Wanted by Amanda Saint [dropcap]I[/dropcap]t all started when I went a bit mad. London life had got to me. Insomnia for two long years, extortionate rent, no proper darkness, endless noise. So when I flipped out one day over a minor issue–we’re talking wailing, screaming, throwing and kicking things (very…