As I’ve gotten older, busier, and generally more stressed, I’ve noticed something sad about myself: I seldom read for fun anymore. When I was a growing up in the truly riveting hubbub of Morro Bay, California I would make a conscious effort to sit myself down and read a gosh darn novel or even just … Continue reading Finding Time to Read for Fun
Writing for Non-Writers: or How to Free-Write Free Will
There is a common misconception that a writer is a particular sort of person. That being a writer is something you’re born into, that someone either can write or can’t. There also is a second common misconception: the idea that people have to want to read what you write for it to be “good.” Given … Continue reading Writing for Non-Writers: or How to Free-Write Free Will
All We Need is a Writer Who Writes
There are points in a writer’s life when the creative juices are not flowing. The juices have hit a block, a wall, and they say to the writer, “let us not be productive today.” The writer complies, justifying the lack of output by thinking that motivation will come later. Then the writer gets the idea … Continue reading All We Need is a Writer Who Writes
Ego-Less Writing
A writer, above all other professionals, ought to be self-aware. Nothing is more detestable than writing that is hypocritical. To prevent hypocrisy, a writer ought to walk the talk. She ought to wield truth like a sword and hack away at herself—especially at those parts of herself that would inspire ridicule in any reasonable reader. … Continue reading Ego-Less Writing
What Bathos Can Do for Your Short Fiction
We all know the drill: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action. This is the formula for basic stories and a successful plot line, proven to be effective and hard to stray from as a writer. And yet, in attempting a climactic moment, writers often get stuck in the mires of melodrama, falling prey to contrivances … Continue reading What Bathos Can Do for Your Short Fiction
Lessons on the Power of Concision from Yasunari Kawabata
In judging this year’s flash fiction contest entries, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Yasunari Kawabata, a master of the form. Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese writer who, in 1968, became the first Japanese author to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. While he is likely better known for his novels, such as Snow … Continue reading Lessons on the Power of Concision from Yasunari Kawabata
How to Pretend to Have Read Books Without Really Trying
Like most college students—and like all who wear lens-less glasses—I entered freshmen year entirely assured I was uniquely well-read. My first year taught me three important things (in addition to imparting on me the wisdom that lens-less glasses picked me out as uniquely unlikeable): First, my taste in books was not unique (however at the … Continue reading How to Pretend to Have Read Books Without Really Trying
Essay: Are you there, “The New Yorker”? It’s me, every hopeful college writer.
College writers are desperate creatures, yearning for attention and audience. Hungry for praise, popularity, and even infamy, we all seek that fix—the sweet glory of publication—to validate those hours upon days upon weeks spent with head bent in humble supplication to whatever god may grace us from within the void of the blank, white page. … Continue reading Essay: Are you there, “The New Yorker”? It’s me, every hopeful college writer.
BERKELEY FICTION REVIEW 