Though our tools were different, my painter mother taught me some of my most important lessons about writing.
CRAFT: What My Painter Mother Taught Me About Writing by Katie Simon
Category: Craft
Our Craft column archive, which features an array of guest contributors.
CRAFT: Striking the Balance: On Showing and Telling by Nicole Breit
Effective storytellers know there’s more to a day’s work than writing a through-line from Point A—inciting incident—to Point B—resolution.
CRAFT: The United Stigma of America by Tyler Grimm
We need to be compassionate to ourselves, and then we must be compassionate to those we write about.
CRAFT: The Trauma Museum by Tyler Grimm
We are all intimate with grief and trauma. What it feels like, how it slices into us…
CRAFT: Answering the Call: On Writing About Trauma and Loss by Nicole Breit
Love, loss, heartbreak: it’s the theme embedded in so many memorable works of art.
CRAFT: Writing a Book Might Not Change Your Life, But It Will Change You by Abby Norman
Writers like to write articles extolling the many misconceptions about their profession; misconceptions that, at times, they themselves believe.
CRAFT: Hooking Your Students, Hooking Yourself by Tyler Grimm
Writing is hard. It is beautiful and liberating at times, yet self-destructive at others.
CRAFT: On Seeking the Truth in Our Stories by Nicole Breit
I’m a fastidious fact checker. When writing creative nonfiction I will confirm the day of the week an event happened, what the weather was like…
What Writer and Teacher Can Tell You About Craft by Kristin Weller
Two beers, four turns around the first floor with a vacuum cleaner, and the first nine episodes of Shameless on Netflix. That’s what it took to work out the Teacher and wake up the Writer between Friday night and Saturday morning, today. After all, carving creative time from the expansive collage of responsibilities and distractions…
Craft: 4 New Ways to Tell Your Stories by Nicole Breit
I discovered what I call CNF’s “outlier forms” a few years ago. I was looking for innovative ways to approach old material…
