Avoiding Failure

By Sarah Blanchard The gun shop owners are busy with customers wanting gunsmith services and booking time on the rifle range. They donโ€™t know thereโ€™s a troll in their midst. Sheโ€™s the pudgy, silver-haired grandmother in Wrangler jeans, a buffalo-plaid sweatshirt, and well-worn leather barn boots, casually perusing a display of gun oils and cleaning … Continue reading Avoiding Failure

Hurricane Lolita: The Art of Sex In Fiction

By Emily McGowan In the summer of 1958, Hurricane Lolita made landfall in the USA. It was not an actual hurricane, but a best-selling novelโ€”an erotic morality tale by Russian-American Vladimir Nabokovโ€”and as critics took notice and controversy began to build, Lolita and its author were tossed into the perfect storm. โ€œHe writes highbrow pornography,โ€ … Continue reading Hurricane Lolita: The Art of Sex In Fiction

A Writerโ€™s Take on โ€œShowing vs. Telling”

By Allie Dixon โ€œYour nonfiction is too fictiony.โ€ Sorry, what? This was the recurring feedback from my first ever MFA graduate workshop as an ex-fiction writer turned nonfiction. As annoying as it was, it forced me to explore what writers and readers alike have heard over and over and over โ€“ youโ€™re not showing us, … Continue reading A Writerโ€™s Take on โ€œShowing vs. Telling”