por Ersun Warncke | Oct 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
Steve Almond, 2024Key wordsWriting, writer’s craft, creative writing, narrative writing, writing teacher, practical writing advice, personal essays, short stories, fiction writing Craft books aren’t supposed to make you cry, are they?Steve Almond’s DIY Manual for the...
por Ersun Warncke | Oct 15, 2024 | Uncategorized
William Zinsser, reissued 2016Key wordsWriting, nonfiction, writer’s craft, creative writing, narrative writing, interdisciplinary writing, writing teacher, practical writing advice, professional writing First published in 1976, On Writing Well is a book that would...
por Ersun Warncke | Oct 8, 2024 | Uncategorized
The I’s don’t have itAs a college application essay coach, my inbox is inundated with personal essays. All of them rife, riddled, replete with a construction that starts to feel like a hammer hitting a nail: I + verb.I think. I did. I was. I believe. I...
por Ersun Warncke | Oct 1, 2024 | Uncategorized
Ditch the he said/she saidThough ambivalently fond of Ernest Hemingway, one thing I can’t — won’t — argue with is the man’s approach to dialogue. As much as any 20th century writer, we have Papa H to thank for excising the clutter of he/she/they...
por Ersun Warncke | Sep 24, 2024 | Uncategorized
Coming to you from the writer’s desk, not the desk of the writer English is a magnificent language for many reasons. One of which is the mind-blowing innovation of the possessive apostrophe. In Spanish, one can’t say ‘Laura’s house’ — it has to be la casa de...
por Ersun Warncke | Sep 17, 2024 | Uncategorized
Just don’t do it.I have a brilliant student (like, brilliant; this kid says they’ll save the world, and they might just) but they have a punctuational Achilles heel: exclamation marks.Every time they send an essay I return it dotted comments that just read:...
