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Craft Capsules

In our weekly series of craft essays, some of the best and brightest minds in contemporary literature explore their craft in compact form, articulating their thoughts about creative obsessions and curiosities in a working notebook of lessons about the art of writing.

Write It Again

by

Lauren Camp

7.25.22

The author of Took House explores what happens when poets permit themselves to write about the same subject multiple times.

Tags:

writing process | drafting | revision | experimentation | writing practices

Make It Strange

by

Lauren Camp

7.18.22

The author of Took House explores the importance of “strangeness” in poetry and offers a method for capturing this quality by combining two different draft poems.

Tags:

writing process | writing practices | revision | experimentation

Hold Your Darlings

by

Lauren Camp

7.11.22

The author of Took House explores a kinder approach to revision, in which language cut during one editorial process may be saved as material for a new writing project.

Tags:

writing process | writing practices | revision | experimentation

Setting the Table for Your Reader

by

Trevor Ketner

6.27.22

The author of [WHITE] explores the benefits of writing to a specific audience and the risks of trying to meet the market’s imagined demands.

Tags:

writing process | readership | aesthetics | style | writing practices

Revise Like a Painter

by

Trevor Ketner

6.20.22

The author of [WHITE] considers how writers might take inspiration from visual artists in their approach to revision, pushing beyond surface editing to “see” their work afresh.

Tags:

writing process | writing practices | experimentation | visual art | revision

Freedom From Genre as Freedom to Write

by

Trevor Ketner

6.13.22

The author of [WHITE] explores how writing outside one’s primary genre can lead to literary breakthroughs.

Tags:

writing process | writing practices | experimentation | cross-genre | essays

Mixing Up My Poetry Practice to Beat Writer’s Block

by

Trevor Ketner

6.6.22

The author of [WHITE] shares how experimenting with found texts can energize the poetic process and expand a poet’s lyric repertoire.

Tags:

writing process | writing practices | writer's block | experimentation

I Could Not Give Up on My Characters

by

Dalia Azim

4.18.22

The author of Country of Origin looks back on the fifteen years she spent working on her debut novel.

Tags:

revision | characters | perseverance | writing process | writing practices

Conjuring Egypt With Music

by

Dalia Azim

4.11.22

The author of Country of Origin listens to old-school Arabic music to help her render the mood of Egypt at the dawn of the postcolonial period.

Tags:

music | inspiration | memory | research

Portals Into Bygone Times

by

Dalia Azim

4.4.22

The author of Country of Origin muses on the transporting power of photographs.

Tags:

photographs | archives | memory

Where I Found My Writing Community

by

Dalia Azim

3.28.22

The author of Country of Origin reflects on finding her people in Austin, Texas.

Tags:

community | literary agents | Austin | independent publishing

These Walls Won’t Stop Talking

by

Allegra Hyde

3.14.22

A white-tiled public bathroom wall covered in stickers.

The author of Eleutheria explores how setting can tell a story.

Tags:

setting | place | character | point of view | writing process

If a Tree Falls

by

Allegra Hyde

3.7.22

Low sunlight filters through the trees in a boreal forest.

The author of Eleutheria looks beyond the construct of man vs. nature.

Tags:

nature/environmental | ecology | conflict | plot | connection | setting | writing process

The Face in the Whirlpool

by

Allegra Hyde

2.28.22

Turbulent waters viewed from above. Rocks and seaweed give the appearance of a face in the water.

The author of Eleutheria considers the literary value of the human instinct to look for faces everywhere.

Tags:

nature/environmental | ecology | myth | science | setting | writing process

You Can Never Just Do One Thing

by

Allegra Hyde

2.21.22

A wide glass bottle filled with soil and small sprouts rests on a windowsill.

The author of Eleutheria uses ecological principles to guide her writing.

Tags:

nature/environmental | ecology | world building | character | setting | writing process

Hot but Heavy

by

Destiny O. Birdsong

2.7.22

The author of Nobody’s Magic considers what happens when you lust after your own characters.

Tags:

love | sex | sexuality | desire | family | mothers | Blackness | albinism | writing process

A Smart Mouth

by

Destiny O. Birdsong

1.31.22

The author of Nobody’s Magic reflects on writing in African American Vernacular English.

Tags:

voice | dialogue | AAVE | Blackness | albinism | character | home | writing process

Ain’t We Got Enough Problems?

by

Destiny O. Birdsong

1.24.22

The author of Nobody’s Magic shares lessons from writing an unlikable nonnormative character.

Tags:

character | unlikable | albinism | Blackness | writing process

Craft Capsule: Translating Monozygotic Triplets

by

Julia Sanches

12.13.21

Close-up of a bowl of raw six or so egg yolks and whites. Small bubbles appear on the surface of the eggs.

The translator of Migratory Birds and Permafrost shares how growing up between different languages and countries has led her to challenge conventional wisdom about the art of translation.

Tags:

childhood | family | language | multilingual | translation | translators

Craft Capsule: On Cultural Specificity, or the Brazilian Padaria

by

Julia Sanches

12.6.21

Golden-brown loaves of bread rise out of round tins. The tins sit in lines on multiple levels of worn metal trays.

The translator of Migratory Birds and Permafrost expresses the limits of translation when it comes to culturally specific institutions and terms.

Tags:

culture | food | weather | home | translation

Craft Capsule: On Google Maps

by

Julia Sanches

11.29.21

A satellite image of the Canary Islands.

The translator of Migratory Birds and Permafrost uses Google Maps to immerse herself in the settings of her translation projects.

Tags:

setting | environment | nature/environmental | nature | weather | climate | travel | translation | research | writing process

Craft Capsule: The Thing About Food

by

Christopher Gonzalez

11.15.21

A steaming-hot slice of pizza being lifted out of the full pie is trailed by strands of melted cheese.

The author of I’m Not Hungry but I Could Eat revels in writing about food and the varied contexts surrounding its consumption.

Tags:

food | props | character | scene | play | writing process

Craft Capsule: Pet Sitting

by

Christopher Gonzalez

11.8.21

The author of I’m Not Hungry but I Could Eat leverages his intrusive thoughts from pet sitting for fiction.

Tags:

animals | pets | mental health | imagination | inspiration | writing process

Craft Capsule: Bisexuality on the Page

by

Christopher Gonzalez

11.1.21

Close-up of a man with a dark, full beard and mustache. The photo is cropped just above his mustache and just below his chest. He is lit by purple lighting on one side and blue on the other.

The author of I’m Not Hungry but I Could Eat shares the evolution of his thinking on how to represent bisexuality and queerness in fiction.

Tags:

queerness | bisexuality | LGBTQ | Identity | criticism | reader experience | writing process

Craft Capsule: On Writing Fat Characters

by

Christopher Gonzalez

10.25.21

Close-up of two men with scruffy facial hair embracing in a dark room. A red light behind them illuminates the edges of their skin.

The author of I’m Not Hungry but I Could Eat seeks to write fat characters for whom fatness is not always an immediate concern.

Tags:

fatness | queerness | Puerto Rican | embodiment | character | writing process

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