Creative Writing
Spring 2008
Resources
The Writing Process/General Issues
William Stafford's "A Way of Writing"
Web del Sol: impressive quality and quantity of contemporary fiction and poetry, links to literary magazines, news about writers and writing, much other stuff.
Character description: don't do it like this.
Poetry
The Essays on Writing page of the Academy of American Poets site -- massive site, includes audio of people like Gwendolyn Brooks, Wm. Carlos Williams, Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, James Wright, etc., reading their work; more than 1800 poems, searchable by author, first line, title, and theme; a national poetry map listing poets, poems, literary organizations, publishers, readings, festivals, etc. (here's the page for California); etc.; and more etc.
Modern American Poetry, edited by Cary Nelson. For most of 161 poets listed, pages include a biographical essay, brief excerpts of critics' thoughts about individual poems, links to poetry and other online resources about the poet. But many poets' pages have a lot more stuff on them: here's some of E. E. Cummings's paintings, and here's one of Denise Levertov's speeches against the Vietnam War, for instance. Among the poets we've read, there are pages for Levertov, Kinnell, Levine, Castillo, Hayden, Plath, Brooks, Ginsberg, Jeffers, Rexroth, Baraka, Fearing, Stevens, McGrath, -- plus pages about poetry from Angel Island and Manzanar.
Fiction
Robert Olen Butler, Writer-in-Residence at Florida State and a Pulitzer Prize winner, has documented the drafting and revision of his story "This is Earl Sandt" -- even including video of his writing sessions -- at Inside Creative Writing.
Entertainment Weekly's "15 Nominees for Worst Movie Dialogue Ever." My favorite's from Sin City.
Screenwriting
As a public service as well as very good p.r., striking writers on the picket lines will be giving advice to aspiring screenwriters on Wednesdays or Thursdays.
The Writing Business
I recommend Duotrope as a means of finding markets for your work and tracking submissions.
Copyright basics, in relatively readable form.
Top Ten Questions Writers Ask from Poets and Writers.
