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Craft Capsules

In our weekly series of craft essays, some of the best and brightest minds in contemporary literature explore their craft in compact form, articulating their thoughts about creative obsessions and curiosities in a working notebook of lessons about the art of writing.

Craft Capsule: On Cultural Specificity, or the Brazilian Padaria

by

Julia Sanches

12.6.21

Golden-brown loaves of bread rise out of round tins. The tins sit in lines on multiple levels of worn metal trays.

The translator of Migratory Birds and Permafrost expresses the limits of translation when it comes to culturally specific institutions and terms.

Tags:

culture | food | weather | home | translation

Craft Capsule: On Google Maps

by

Julia Sanches

11.29.21

A satellite image of the Canary Islands.

The translator of Migratory Birds and Permafrost uses Google Maps to immerse herself in the settings of her translation projects.

Tags:

setting | environment | nature/environmental | nature | weather | climate | travel | translation | research | writing process

Craft Capsule: The Thing About Food

by

Christopher Gonzalez

11.15.21

A steaming-hot slice of pizza being lifted out of the full pie is trailed by strands of melted cheese.

The author of I’m Not Hungry but I Could Eat revels in writing about food and the varied contexts surrounding its consumption.

Tags:

food | props | character | scene | play | writing process

Craft Capsule: Pet Sitting

by

Christopher Gonzalez

11.8.21

The author of I’m Not Hungry but I Could Eat leverages his intrusive thoughts from pet sitting for fiction.

Tags:

animals | pets | mental health | imagination | inspiration | writing process

Craft Capsule: Bisexuality on the Page

by

Christopher Gonzalez

11.1.21

Close-up of a man with a dark, full beard and mustache. The photo is cropped just above his mustache and just below his chest. He is lit by purple lighting on one side and blue on the other.

The author of I’m Not Hungry but I Could Eat shares the evolution of his thinking on how to represent bisexuality and queerness in fiction.

Tags:

queerness | bisexuality | LGBTQ | Identity | criticism | reader experience | writing process

Craft Capsule: On Writing Fat Characters

by

Christopher Gonzalez

10.25.21

Close-up of two men with scruffy facial hair embracing in a dark room. A red light behind them illuminates the edges of their skin.

The author of I’m Not Hungry but I Could Eat seeks to write fat characters for whom fatness is not always an immediate concern.

Tags:

fatness | queerness | Puerto Rican | embodiment | character | writing process

Craft Capsule: Tiny Doable Things

by

Blair Hurley

10.4.21

Close-up of a person's hand using a wood chisel to cut a pattern into a light blond wood. Small, thin shavings of wood are scattered around the area being cut.

The author of The Devoted writes about the little things writers can do when a project feels impossible.

Tags:

writer’s block | advice | writing exercises | writing process | podcasts | community

Craft Capsule: The Long Short

by

Blair Hurley

9.27.21

Various small groups of people mill around in a dark club, silhouetted by red lighting, which also causes the tile wall on the right-hand side to shimmer.

The author of The Devoted considers the strengths of the long short story.

Tags:

short stories | long short stories | character | atmosphere | writing process

Craft Capsule: The Edge of a Scene

by

Blair Hurley

9.20.21

View of a set for recording an interview. A single black fold-out chair sits on a slate gray paper floor and backdrop. A microphone at the end of a boom floats above the chair, and a bright overhead light illuminates the scene.

The author of The Devoted recommends looking around the edges of a story to locate the unexpected places and times where drama can unfold.

Tags:

time | setting | scene | conflict | expectations | reader experience | outsider | FOMO | writing process

Craft Capsule: Vertigo

by

Blair Hurley

9.13.21

A black-and-white photo of a staircase. The camera appears to have been moved or shaken during the exposure, creating a blurry, disorienting effect.

The author of The Devoted searches for the unexpected door in her fiction.

Tags:

vertigo | disorientation | family | grief | expectations | reader experience | plot | character | writing process

Craft Capsule: How to Be a Writer and an Organizer

by

Anjali Enjeti

8.2.21

A dozen or so “I VOTED” stickers with an American flag design are spread out on a white table.

The author of Southbound and The Parted Earth makes time for both community organizing and writing.

Tags:

community | activism | role models | inspiration | writing schedule | South Asian writers

Craft Capsule: Why You Need an Authenticity Editor

by

Anjali Enjeti

7.26.21

Close-up of the cover of Anjali Enjeti's Southbound. An intricate line drawing of a flower surrounded by leaves and stems in bright blue and green ink.

The author of Southbound and The Parted Earth writes about how authenticity editors have helped enrich her work in all genres.

Tags:

South Asian writers | community | literary community | culture | editors | editing | authenticity editing

Craft Capsule: The Multi-Genre Mindset

by

Anjali Enjeti

7.19.21

Pins of various colors cast long shadows on the Middle East and Southeast Asia section of a world map.

The author of Southbound and The Parted Earth shares her approach to balancing projects in multiple genres.

Tags:

South Asian writers | multi-genre | cross-genre | research | drafting | revision | writing process | creativity | inspiration

Craft Capsule: The “Routine” of Writing With Chronic Pain

by

Anjali Enjeti

7.12.21

Medical drawings of bone structures. A white sheet of paper with a drawing of a human spine lies on top of wax transfers of a skull and a foot.

The author of Southbound and The Parted Earth shares how chronic pain has forced her to challenge traditional notions of writing productivity.

Tags:

South Asian writers | writing routine | writing process | deadlines | time | seasons | illness | pain

Craft Capsule: Becoming Strange Again

by

Alex Dimitrov

6.28.21

A view of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park in New York City. The water is covered in a thin layer of fresh ice. A fountain spouts in the background.

The author of Love and Other Poems offers advice on how to avoid being stuck.

Tags:

writer’s block | running | swimming | inspiration | beauty | aesthetics | writing process

Poem Written in a Cab

by

Alex Dimitrov

6.21.21

At night in New York City, the backside of a yellow taxicab is illuminated by headlights.

From Love and Other Poems, published by Copper Canyon Press in February 2021.

Craft Capsule: Poem Written in a Cab

by

Alex Dimitrov

6.21.21

A solitary yellow taxicab crosses over the Brooklyn Bridge on a clear, bright day. Skyscrapers in downtown Manhattan are visible in the background.

The author of Love and Other Poems steals time to write poetry during cab rides across New York City.

Tags:

time | taxicab | driving | New York City | travel

Craft Capsule: A Poem Called Love

by

Alex Dimitrov

6.14.21

Edited photo of the upper half of the Empire State Building. Everything is in pink tones. A small white square with the handwritten words “MUCH LOVE XO” is pasted on top of the photo, on the face of the building.

The author of Love and Other Poems offers an antidote to the usual despair and hysteria on Twitter by writing an endless poem about love.

Tags:

love | joy | pleasure | social media | Twitter | Internet | public art

Craft Capsule: Night Call

by

Alex Dimitrov

6.7.21

Film photo of a bedroom. A floor lamp illuminates striped pillows on a bedspread, while the rest of the room remains mostly dark.

The author of Love and Other Poems describes a special project in which he read his poetry to strangers in their bedrooms.

Tags:

New York City | intimacy | reading | strangers | imagination

Craft Capsule: Technically It’s a Ravioli

by

Kristen Arnett

5.17.21

Flour plump homemade ravioli sit on the kitchen table. They are lightly dusted with flour, waiting to be cooked. Toward the back is a small glass bowl with an egg mixture and a mound of white flour.

The author of With Teeth celebrates absurdist humor.

Tags:

absurdist humor | absurdism | humor | social media

Craft Capsule: On Copycats and Reply Guys

by

Kristen Arnett

5.10.21

The wall behind a bar is illuminated by a red-and-yellow neon light. Bottles of liquor and wine are perched on shelving units. Several out-of-focus figures are standing in front of the bar.

The author of With Teeth writes about the pleasure of riffing off a good joke.

Tags:

imitation | humor | collaboration | social media

Craft Capsule: Self-Deprecating Humor

by

Kristen Arnett

5.3.21

A deconstructed lego person is spread out on a light green surface.

The author of With Teeth writes that her affinity for self-deprecating humor is inextricable from her queerness.

Tags:

self-deprecating humor | humor | queerness | Identity

Craft Capsule: What’s So Funny?

by

Kristen Arnett

4.26.21

Close-up of a blue-and-yellow macaw with its face turned to the side, beak ajar and tucked into its neck.

The author of With Teeth examines how a single joke can be successfully repackaged and retold over time.

Tags:

humor | retelling | family | memory | reader experience | writing process

Craft Capsule: Writing With Limitations

by

Susan Stinson

4.12.21

A canopy of orange leaves. The image becomes blurred in a circular pattern toward the outer edges of the image, creating an effect that makes the viewer feel as if they are spinning.

The author of Martha Moody finds new strategies to sustain her creative life after suffering a head injury.

Tags:

limitations | illness | injury | disability culture | coronavirus | writing process | audiobooks

Craft Capsule: Freedom

by

Susan Stinson

4.5.21

The cover of Susan Stinson’s chapbook, Belly Songs: In Celebration of Fat Women, which features a charcoal drawing of the author wearing a slip.

The author of Martha Moody celebrates the creative freedom of small-scale indie publishing.

Tags:

publishing | micro press | small press | feminist | queerness | fatness | readership

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