Essay
Altogether Beautiful
A close reading of “Assumptions” against the Catholic dogma of the Assumption, useful as a model for students writing their own close readings.
Read the essay →Free Downloads · For Student Writers
Guides for Student Writers
Craft handouts, submission guides, and literary-analysis workbooks, informed by three decades in the classroom and by The Art of Telling. The free handouts are gathered on the Free Guides page; the full-length guides are in the Store.
Guides is the short list: the core handbooks a student writer needs first. For the full library of course handouts, short-story templates, and a glossary of literary terms, visit The Commonplace Shelf.
Crafting
Also in the Store: Writing the Life: A Student’s Guide to Memoir, Memoir Types & Model Outlines, and The Silver Current Writing Workshop Handbook—full guides sold as PDF downloads.
Booklets on Writing the Thing Itself
Structure, scene, voice, and revision—for fiction and for memoir.
Submissions
Also in the Store: Publishing Memoir & Personal Essay, Submitting Short Stories, Poetry Submission Suggestions, and The Submitter’s Companion—full guides sold as PDF downloads.
Before You Send Your Pages
What to send, where to send it, and why manuscripts get turned down, one guide per form.
Analyzing
Also in the Store: Student Workbook for Literary Analysis and A Companion to Literary Analysis—full guides sold as PDF downloads.
Reading Closely, Writing About It
Guided literary-analysis practice, and an essay to use as a model of the form.