You are entering a writing contest, and you are asked to provide a cover letter, and a bio. You do your best, and submit something great. Yet, there is a lingering doubt in your mind. Will someone else’s cover letter and bio stand out more? Will they gain an advantage? Am I letting myself down, … Read more
Getting started can be the hardest part of writing fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Making a plan, and setting off confidently in the right direction sounds easy, but too often we find ourselves staring at the blank page in terror (or simply wandering away to find a less daunting task). In this article we share some … Read more
Hello poets. Poetry contests. Exciting. Enticing. So many questions. Which contest should I enter? How do I win one? In this article we’ll run you through all the best advice we’ve ever given to help you place first in a competition, as well as answer all the most frequent questions poets ask us on the … Read more
Hi Community, Writing contests. There’s a lot of them. First of all: Why do we enter them? To win prize money of course. But also, more importantly, to advance our writing careers. To gain recognition, publication, and to connect with a reading audience. Before we embark on any endeavor we want as much info as … Read more
Literary theory or literary criticism can be hard to understand at the best of times. It’s frequently written in complex language, and addresses some of the most complex and challenging ideas around. So how do you even get started with this field? The best place to begin with literary theory is with glossaries, introductions to … Read more
The nine best Gothic writers are Radcliffe, Shelley, Brontë, Wilde, Dickens, Poe, Rossetti, Coleridge, and Byron. If you seek a greater understanding of the tropes of this genre, these writers are the place to start. If you find pleasure in the haunted, and the macabre, then these titans are sure to thrill and delight. Gothic … Read more
The 12 best innovative, experimental, and avant-garde writers of all time are Folarin, Kandasamy, Wallace, Calvino, Stein, Ginsberg, Baker, Brecht, Jarry, Wachowski, Kaufman, and Nolan. These writers expressed themselves in novels, plays, poems, and via screenplays. Innovation began when words were first committed to paper, and that tradition continues as strongly as ever today! The … Read more
Science fiction is worth reading because of the extraordinary creative works that exist in this genre, and the talented writers who compose science fiction including Orwell, Card, Adams, Verne, Asimov, Gaiman, Herbert, Le Guin, Bradbury, and Wells. Below we examine the works of each of these authors, and consider whether science fiction is worth reading … Read more
The 10 best absurdist writers are Camus, Kōbō Abe, Stoppard, Beckett, Pinter, Albee, Ionesco, Kafka, Vonnegut, and Heller. Absurdism is a philosophy which has roots in the philosophy of Existentialism: both address questions related to the meaning of life. Where Existentialism offers modes of meaning, Absurdism proposes life is … absurd! This is symbolized most famously … Read more
The Age of Sensibility is the period in British literature which sits between and 1745 and 1798. The greatest Age of Sensibility writers are Burney, Johnson, Sheridan, Goodsmith, and Sterne. They were titans in their own time and still influential and enjoyed today! Sensibility refers to the ability to appreciate and understand emotions: in this … Read more