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The Writing University Podcast

The Writing University

The Writing University Podcast

A daily Education, Higher Education and Arts podcast
Good podcast? Give it some love!
The Writing University Podcast

The Writing University

The Writing University Podcast

Episodes
The Writing University Podcast

The Writing University

The Writing University Podcast

A daily Education, Higher Education and Arts podcast
Good podcast? Give it some love!
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Episodes of The Writing University Podcast

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You've written and revised a novel, memoir, story, flash fiction, or poem, and now you want to submit it for publication. As she navigates the publication of her third novel, Ghost Mother (Union Square & Co., 2024), author Kelly Dwyer will take
You've written and revised a novel, memoir, story, flash fiction, or poem, and now you want to submit it for publication. As she navigates the publication of her third novel, Ghost Mother (Union Square & Co., 2024), author Kelly Dwyer will take
We should require of prose what we expect of poetry: vividness, compression, and good sound. The last of these is often neglected by prose writers, as though they were working in a silent genre, or sound was merely a decorative concern. Wrong.
To borrow a cliche, let's go down the rabbit hole. But on the way down, let's observe the dirt, the worms, the twists, the darkness, the sacred and the profane. For a writing project, whether a short story or a novel, trope can be an entry poin
Is peace the absence of conflict or a state that can exist within conflict? How can writing cultivate, reveal, practice, and advance personal and shared forms of peaceable assembly? What's the relationship between peace and protest, politics an
Most of us who write feel the need to remember our dead in elegies, memoir, or fiction, a task that can be more difficult than we at first expect. Often our first challenge is to speak at all, to find language adequate to our grief. Then come o
We often think about the tool of reflection in writing as a mode of thought or tone of voice we employ when we ruminate, meditate, contemplate or explain—in short, when we provide what Phillip Gerard calls, “finished thought.” But we might also
However creative and brilliant you are, your work is evaluated (consciously or not) for its style. We write in different styles, but all writing needs correct grammar and appropriate punctuation. Good writing is characterized by the clarity and
Many book editors and agents say that they read the first paragraph of a manuscript, and if they like it, they skip ahead to read some dialogue. If the dialogue is strong, they go back to page one and keep reading. If the dialogue is weak, the
As a painter, I am constantly recognizing ideas about composition in art that speak directly to what I do as a writer. One concept that is especially useful is Notan, a Japanese term that means "light-dark balance." We can also think of positiv
The “central channel,” a somatic and energetic space well-known for centuries in contemplative disciplines,is rarely discussed in connection with writing. Understanding the central channel, and how to apply it to writing,can reveal much a
The memory curve, on a most basic level, means the reader’s attention is highest at the beginning, dips in the middle,and goes up again at the end. When putting pen to paper for the first time, most writers don’t think about a reader’s memor
"The present moment is all you have,” as author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle says, and nowhere is this more the case than in writing. Successful narrative writing allows the reader to virtually experience a series of present moments thro
No one wants your story, essay, or poem to read like Fast and the Furious 9. But Hollywood formulae reflect a kind of science of narrative satisfaction, which can be transformative for a piece that isn't coming together in precisely the right w
We’re all voyeurs when it comes to the habits and practices of other writers. Do they churn out a certain number of pages each week? Do they have a day job? A cat? A room of their own? What does the desk look like? After peeking into several ar
Poets and songwriters utilize aspects of language that are essential for prose writers to know. Take the slow, repeated vowels and consonants Joyce uses in “The Dead”: “…his soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the u
The most intimate, powerful, and fraught relationships in our lives are often with the limited inner circle we call family. For that reason, those relationships often feature heavily in our writing. However, to write about family relationships
Transforming life into writing is an individual process, as individual as the art we create. Another way to think about this is how do we understand and explain the relationship of the real or actual, what some people might call, what really ha
Chiaroscuro, in art, is a technique that uses bold contrasts of light and dark in painting to create vivid scenes and evoke emotion. It renders images almost three-dimensional. In writing, the bold use of light and dark has a similar effect. Th
In creative writing, truth isn’t everything, but emotional truth almost is. Whatever the genre, however familiar or strange the situation or action, readers need to believe that the emotions in a piece of writing are true. And nothing conveys e
This lecture will consider memoirs and essays written about events that are still unfolding. How can you tell a story when you don't know how it will end? How can you write about yourself when your relationship to time, memory, language, the bo
Death has haunted the work of countless authors. And even if we’re not writing about death directly, it often overshadows our creations, as we deal with the loss of loved ones and the inevitability of our own mortality. These struggles can be p
Getting a story onto the page is a necessary first step. Then the heavy lifting, both outer and inner, can begin. While the facts of a real-life or fictional event may remain static from draft to draft, the author's interpretation of those even
We often think about the tool of reflection in writing as a mode of thought or tone of voice we employ when we ruminate, meditate, contemplate, or explain—in short, when we provide what Phillip Gerard calls “finished thought.” But we might also
During workshops, it often becomes clear how heavily the “feminine” voice—characterized by multi-angled, expansive prose and a focus on the emotional realm—is criticized in writing, and the “masculine” voice—characterized by straightforward, sp
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