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RESOURCES for WRiTERS
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CRAFT & PROCESS
Books
Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg
With insight, humor, and practicality, Natalie Goldberg inspires writers and would-be writers to take the leap into writing skillfully and creatively
A Swim in the Pond in the Rain; In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders
Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.
FiCTiON & NONFiCTiON
Videos
Writing the Future You Want to See: Speculative Fiction as Activism
ORGANiZATiONS TO KNOW
AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs): provides support, advocacy, resources, and community to writers, college and university creative writing programs, and writers’ conferences and centers
PEN America: unites writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible
CRAFT & PROCESS
How to Write a Poem: “ [Poetry] should be an experience that feels like slipping into a warm bath and less like, say, taking a time machine back to your high school English class and realizing you don’t understand the assignment. Poetry is the opposite of that.”
POETRY & HYBRiD
ORGANiZATiONS TO KNOW
Academy of American Poets: supports American poets at all stages of their careers and fosters the appreciation of contemporary poetry
Poetry Foundation: amplifies poetry and celebrate poets by fostering spaces for all to create, experience, and share poetry
Button Poetry: produces and distributes poetry media, including: video from local and national events, chapbooks, collaborative audio recordings, scholarship and criticism, and many other products
CRAFT & PROCESS
(re)making project - Charles Mee’s philosophy behind offering his plays for free to be reimagined into new plays, for “There is no such thing as an original play.”
Jose Rivera’s 36 Assumptions About Writing Plays from The American Theatre Reader: Essays and Conversations from American Theatre Magazine, 2009
100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write; On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater by Sarah Ruhl
A vibrant, provocative examination of the possibilities of the theater, it is also a map to a very particular artistic sensibility, and an unexpected guide for anyone who has chosen an artist's life.
Backwards & Forwards; A Technical Manual for Reading Plays by David Ball
Considered an essential text since its publication thirty-five years ago, this guide for students and practitioners of both theater and literature complements, rather than contradicts or repeats, traditional methods of literary analysis of scripts.
Theatre of the Unimpressed: In Search of Vital Drama by Jordan Tannahill
Playwright and theatre director Jordan Tannahill takes in the spectrum of English-language drama – from the flashiest of Broadway spectacles to productions mounted in scrappy storefront theatres – to consider where lifeless plays come from and why they persist.
PLAYWRiTiNG
ORGANiZATiONS TO KNOW
Playwrights' Center: sustains, develops, and advocates for playwrights and their work to realize their full artistic potential
Dramatists Guild: the national trade association of playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists
New Play Exchange: the world’s largest digital library of scripts by living writers - membership includes personal profile, script sharing, and opportunties
HowlRound: free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide, and amplifying progressive and disruptive ideas about theatre and facilitating connections between diverse practitioners
WEBSiTES & BLOGS
Writing the Other: learning to write characters very different from you sensitively and convincingly, including their particularly helpful guide How to Stay in Your Own Lane about writing characters of color when you are white.
Writing with Color: writing and resources centered on racial, ethnic and religious diversity
Cultural Appropriation for the Worried Writer: Some Practical Advice and Cultural Appropriation for the Worried Writer: Some More Practical Advice
How to Make Your Writing More Sensitive: getting into the right mindset, thinking critically about what you’re writing, and always considering how others will interpret it
WRiTiNG with a DEiA LENS
ViDEOS
Decolonize Your Craft: Anticolonial Worldbuilding
Decolonize Your Craft: Rethinking Fantasy Races
Writing an Accessible Story: Disability Representation
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility
APPS/PROGRAMS
Stimuwrite: downloadable companion writing app for people who are neurodivergent, addicted to social media notifications, or would benefit from extra stimulation and feedback when they draft and take notes
WRiTiNG TOOLS & GUiDES
DiCTiONARiES & OTHER WORD HELPERS
Word Hippo: thesaurus and word tools for your creative needs
Rhyme Zone: rhyming dictionary, thesaurus, and more
BOOKS on WRiTiNG
The Elements of Style by William Strunk, E B White, Maira Kalman
This much-loved classic will forever be the go-to guide when in need of a hint to make a turn of phrase clearer or a reminder on how to enliven prose with the active voice.
Artful Sentences; Syntax as Style by Virginia Tufte
Virginia Tufte presents — and comments on — more than a thousand excellent sentences chosen from the works of authors in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
For a quarter century, more than a million readers—scribes and scribblers of all ages and abilities—have been inspired by Anne Lamott’s hilarious, big-hearted, homespun advice.
ON THE PATH TO GETTiNG PUBLISHED
Jane Friedman’s Resources for Writers, including this excellent chart on the 2023-24 Key Book Publishing Paths
Martha Wells’s Publishing Information Sites for Beginning Authors
Manuscript Wish List: The most human database for the most efficient querying
The Submission Grinder: submission tracker and market database for writers of fiction and poetry
How to Write a Book Proposal: “This guide is intended to help people at any stage of developing a book they would like to see in the world.”
the BUSiNESS SiDE
ARTiST STATEMENTS & BIOS
5 Tips for a Memorable Artist Statement: “Consider your artist statement a welcoming guide to your work.”
How to Write an Artist Statement: “I like to think of the artist statement as the wedding toast of the art world.”
Charles Mee’s What I Like, an excellent example of an artist statement & philosophy
MARKETiNG YOURSELF
How to Pitch Yourself: 8 Tips for Artists: A pitch is when you make the case that something that you do is relevant or useful or interesting to someone else. You might pitch yourself as a way to get hired, to develop a partnership, to get a meeting, or to receive media coverage.
FiNANCES & LiFESTYLE
How to Make the Leap to Full-Time Poet: “I hope this guide might be useful for any person considering the daunting yet exciting leap from the safety of a salaried role into life as a freelance artist.”
How to Apply for Grants: “Every grant is a chance to open up a relationship with a potential funder, curator, or peer—and, you never know who’s sitting on a panel, or what opportunities might arise from your application.”