The best pastoral writers of all time are Brontë, Ovid, Virgil, Hesiod, Horace, Theocritus, Orwell, McCarthy, Hardy, Shakespeare, Jonson, Fletcher, and Tasso, Spenser, Milton. The pastoral genre can be traced to Ancient Greece (over two thousand five hundred years ago!), and pastoral characters often have Greek names which gesture to this lineage. So, what is pastoral … Read more
Yes, Barbara Cartland is worth reading. If you are writing Romance novels, and you haven’t read Cartland, there’s a big hole in your education! If you are a reader seeking out the greatest Romance around, Cartland’s offerings surely must entice you, as they have millions of others. Barbara Cartland is known as the Queen of … Read more
Many of the poets on this list are extremely distinguished and highly respected poets known for writing moving poems of great national and literary significance. It’s great for us that they each also had a highly developed sense of humor! The five best comedy poets of all time are Louise Bennett-Coverley, Pam Ayres, T. S. … Read more
When you play a video game, do you find the detail, depth and originality of the story has the greatest effect upon your experience? You’re not alone. Let’s take a look at the writers who have given us some of the most memorable video game stories and characters of all time. The five best video … Read more
The best novella writers are Eliot, Márquez, Capote, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Conrad. Novellas, longer than a short story but shorter than a novel, offer writers the opportunity to deeply affect a reader in a shorter space of time – perfect for attention spans which shrink every year! George Eliot The Lifted Veil by George Eliot … Read more
Flash fiction is a form that comes in and out of fashion, but has seized the attention of readers again partially due to the limited time it requires from time poor page turners. As attention spans shrink, works that are digestible in a single sitting become ever more valued. The best flash fiction stories are: … Read more
Description offers an excellent place for budding writers to start, but the art of writing description well can be more difficult than anticipated. It takes a lot of skill and nuance to capture different characters and settings accurately through language, and to craft descriptions your readers visualize, remember and long to revisit. The best descriptive … Read more
There are many writers who write about their own lives, but also a particular kind of writer who exhibits an experimental fascination with modes of telling, or conveying truth. Writers who seek particularly to explore the nature of personal experience or of true events through creative and exploratory vehicles can be understood to be operating … Read more
So, who are the funniest writers? Sometimes all the drama can be a bit of a downer, as we doom scroll social media, and click refresh on the news page. Sometimes we need to break up the grimness with a good laugh, an ironic take, and a satirical shrinking of the worst elements. The funniest … Read more
What is Flash Fiction? Flash Fiction is a term which appeared in the early nineteen nineties to refer to very short stories: typically tales of less than 1000 words. The form has, throughout history, been referred to by many other names of course, including short short stories, micro fiction, and sudden fiction. Very short stories … Read more