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CRAFT

Image is a color photo of an open book and moon lamp; title card for the craft essay, “Persuasion, Camouflage, and Inoculation,” by Duncan Whitmire.

Persuasion, Camouflage, and Inoculation: Introducing Magical Elements in Fiction

November 20, 2024

  By Duncan Whitmire • Nothing is more disruptive to a reader than the emergence of the cynical voice inside their head—and nowhere is this more true than with books that traffic in magic and speculation. Some readers call it…

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Image is the book cover for CHOOSE THIS NOW by Nicole Haroutunian; title card for the new interview with Apryl Lee.

Conversations Between Friends: Nicole Haroutunian and Apryl Lee

November 7, 2024

  When I signed the contract to publish my novel-in-stories, Choose This Now, with Noemi Press, I asked to include a clause that the press would make a “good faith effort” to publish it as an audiobook too. They’d never…

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Image is the book cover for TAKE ME WITH YOU NEXT TIME: STORIES by Janis Hubschman; title card for the new interview with Melissa Benton Barker.

Interview: Janis Hubschman

November 1, 2024

  In her debut short story collection, Take Me With You Next Time, Janis Hubschman illuminates the inner lives of girls and women by guiding the reader through the intricate crevices of her characters’ psyches—the thoughts and feelings that we…

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Image is the book cover for BEFORE THE MANGO RIPENS by Afabwaje Kurian; title card for the new hybrid interview with Anna Polonyi.

Hybrid Interview: Afabwaje Kurian

October 3, 2024

  Essay by Anna Polonyi • What does it mean to revise a novel? I’ve been doggedly asking this question ever since attending workshop beside Afabwaje Kurian, whose stunningly written debut novel, Before the Mango Ripens, was released on September…

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Image is the book cover for THE SINGER SISTERS by Sarah Seltzer; title card for the new interview with Benjamin Woodard.

Interview: Sarah Seltzer

October 2, 2024

  In her debut novel, The Singer Sisters, Sarah Seltzer chronicles the highs and lows of a family of musicians, focusing primarily on the matriarch, Judie, and her daughter, Emma. While Judie found her footing in the New York folk…

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Image is the book cover for SAD GROWNUPS: SHORT STORIES by Amy Stuber; title card for the new interview with K Roberts.

Interview: Amy Stuber

September 27, 2024

  There’s a tipping point in life when a possibility becomes a certainty, and a metaphorical crossroads becomes a permanent change of direction. Amy Stuber is adept at finding pivotal moments in her fiction, choices that simultaneously disrupt expectations and…

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Image is a color photograph of choppy ocean waves; title card for the craft essay, "The Speculative Aesthetic: How Language Communicates Genre," by Devon Halliday.

The Speculative Aesthetic: How Language Communicates Genre

September 25, 2024

  By Devon Halliday • When I worked as a literary agent assistant, one of my tasks was to read (or skim) the manuscripts that my boss had requested from promising, unagented authors to determine whether my boss should offer…

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Image is the book cover for DANCING WITH BEARS: QUEER FABLES FOR THE END TIMES by Rob Costello; title card for the new interview with Nora Shalaway Carpenter.

Conversations Between Friends: Nora Shalaway Carpenter and Rob Costello

September 4, 2024

  Nora Shalaway Carpenter and Rob Costello met during their MFA program over a decade ago. Now both creative writing educators, they have collaborated on a number of projects, including Shalaway Carpenter’s acclaimed anthology Rural Voices: 15 Authors Challenge Stereotypes…

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Image is the book cover for FIRST LAW OF HOLES by Meg Pokrass; title card for the new flash interview with Jahzerah Brooks.

Flash Interview: Meg Pokrass

August 30, 2024

  Award-winning author Meg Pokrass, who will serve as our guest judge for the CRAFT 2024 Flash Prose Prize, has published eight collections of flash fiction and two novellas. Meg was generous enough to conduct this flash interview through email…

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Image is the book cover for SHIFT by Penny Guisinger; title card for the new interview with Michele Sharpe.

Interview: Penny Guisinger

August 28, 2024

  Penny Guisinger and I met when we each served on the board of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance in the early 2010s, and I became a fan of her nonfiction soon after. Her work captured complex realities of…

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