I learned of the term “weasel words” from writer Matt Bell, who thinks he learned it from Gabe Durham. In…
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Writing Well
A Brief Defense of Using a Thesaurus (in which I disagree with Stephen King)
You may not even know that the humble thesaurus comes under attack, but it does. The topic arose this week…
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Lessons from Julia Otsuka’s When the Emperor was Divine
I’m a slow reader. I sometimes pluck a book from the shelf based not on whether its subject matter appeals…
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Famous Writers on Revision
You’ve dumped the clay on the table. You’ve sculpted it into a story, an essay, a memoir. You’ve reconsidered it…
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5 Ways to Write Better Sentences
In the first fiction workshop I ever took, our instructor said to us, “Do you know what the difference between…
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The Title and the Short Creative Work
American Life in Poetry sent this lovely Barbara Crooker poem to my inbox. It’s full of beautiful imagery, moving metaphors,…
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