Category: Uncategorized
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Writing What you DON’T Know
By Izzy Silverman A common phrase of writing advice is to write what you know, but what happens when you want to write what you don’t know? It’s simple; do research. There will come a time when you’ll write what you are not familiar with. You have not lived in 13th century modern day Russia…
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Rolling With It: What D&D Taught Me About Creative Writing
By Kyle Grindstaff Creating stories for tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs), such as Dungeons & Dragons, was one of the primary factors that led me to take up writing as a hobby. And selfishly, one of the first things on my mind when I decided to pursue creative writing in college was, “I sure hope my…
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What the Renaissance Faire Can Teach About Writing
By Isabel Taylor Until this fall, I last attended the Tuxedo Renaissance Faire six years ago. My memory of that day is hazy: a sea of lace-up corsets, handheld fans, and contortionists. This October, my friend invited me to go on closing weekend with our local children’s librarian and the librarian’s friend. This day refreshed…
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Writing and Reading Are Not Solitary Pursuits
By Remi Bryan A stereotypical depiction of a writer or avid reader usually consists of someone introverted, a loner, a wallflower, who finds comfort and escape in writing and/or reading. While that is true for a lot of writers and readers, it was not that way for me. When I was a child, I hated…
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Before R’lyeh: Proto-Cosmic Horror
By Gabriel Berger One of the problems with humans, especially in regards to climate change, is that we believe that we are the main characters of this planet, and that we have the plot armor to survive it. This is something humans have always thought and is something that the genre of cosmic horror has…
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Queerness and Horror: An Interview with Rob Costello
by Cedar Warner Rob Costello (he/him) is a writer and teacher based in upstate New York. He writes for and about queer young people. His debut short story collection, The Dancing Bear: Queer Fables for the End Times, came out in 2024, shortly followed by We Mostly Come Out at Night: 15 Queer Tales of…
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BookTube and BookTok: How Online Book Communities Have Changed the Landscape of Reading
By Sydney Maria People online can garner thousands—even millions (especially on TikTok)—of views for talking about books. As someone who has spent years getting recommendations from other readers online, I understand the appeal of watching videos about books. It was one of the things that propelled my love of reading as a young teen, and…
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On Commonplace Poetry
By Cydni Thompson “Full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths, tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.” Gwendolyn Brooks, “The Bean Eaters” What defines the average life is a series of routines, mundanities, and commonplace objects. What life does not include a phone, a bed, a faucet, a blanket, a house; the filth that…
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Writing the Memory of the Never-Happened
By Kirry Kaufer Many writers are daunted by poetry. I used to be one of these writers, too. I used to think poems had to be vulnerable and confessional. However, poetry is different from nonfiction. In a poem, writers can dramatize their memories while remaining true to the authenticity of their experiences. As the poet…
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What Does Fanfiction Mean For The Future Of Writing?
By Cephie Howell It is somewhat well-known that the first modern record of ‘fanfiction’ can be traced back to the 1970’s, with the very active Star Trek fan community. This primitive form of fanfiction was published in fan-run magazines, quickly gaining so much popularity that the show’s creators were eventually compelled to acknowledge it. Now,…
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