Category: Writing

Let Your Characters Grow: Why Writers Should Allow Their Creations to Change the Story

9/1/2026

Photo by Dario Brönnimann on Unsplash

by Erica Rose

There’s a particular kind of magic that happens when you’re writing and suddenly your character refuses to do what you planned. You sit there, staring at the page, thinking, “No, that’s not what’s supposed to happen,” or “Wow, that came out of nowhere.” You had an outline, the beats you needed to hit to tell your story, a neat set of dominoes ready to fall. Your character—the one you made—seems to have other ideas. It’s tempting to rein them in, to remind yourself that you’re the author and you decide what happens next. Yet this moment, uncomfortable as it feels, is one of the surest signs that the story has come alive. The surprise turn has uncovered a different story that is trying to be told. It is an experience that many writers have had, that shock of “where did this come from?”

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The Rewarding Experience of Being a Writing Tutor

8/1/2026

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by Samantha Szumloz

Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

Being a writing tutor requires more than just grammar, essay structure, research, and citation proficiency. It calls for a level of patience, humbleness, and compassion. It additionally calls for a desire to explore the self as well as outside perspectives.

When we take on the title of “writing tutor,” we do not automatically turn into pedagogical guides on high horses, or all-knowing lords with the pen. Rather, we become allies walking hand-in-hand with our clients through their academic obstacles, ceaselessly growing in knowledge along with them.

By looking at tutoring writing in this way while stepping into the shoes of the writing tutor, we can become better penners, better thinkers, and better people overall.

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You Need To Start Writing With Your Friends

7/1/2026

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by Sammi Grasso

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Growing up, it seemed that writing was a solitary practice. I’d heard of stories of writers who escaped into some undetermined forest or mountains and stayed there for weeks–months–YEARS at a time just focusing on honing their craft. They’d write poems about the trees and the bending of branches and the birds that flitted to and fro, topics that clearly were more interesting than whatever they had going on at home. Then, some ethereal being would touch down from the sky to bless them with immeasurable intelligence and wisdom with which to write their masterpiece. Finally, they would emerge from the trees not just a better writer, but a better person as well.

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Fragmented Essays, Fragmented Minds: Writing in the Digital Age

5/1/2026

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by Laura Del Viscio

Photo by Ire Photocreative on Unsplash

As someone who writes in fragments, I can assure you that the mind is a funny thing. It jumps from one moment to the next, with little attention to long and winding detail. I got to thinking, I wonder why that is? I ran through my list of hypotheses as to why my mind can only function in small increments. Was it that every time I sat down to write an essay, the memories became too vivid to bear, so my mind fought back and decided enough was enough, on to the next thing ?

That was my first thought. But then something else occurred to me: my mind has been bouncing back and forth from untethered thought to unfinished thought for quite some time now. So I ask myself again, why is this?

I’ll tell you why: short-form media.

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Don’t Take Writing Advice

1/1/2026

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by Adam Buckley

Via Aaron Burden on Unsplash

The irony of this statement is not lost on me. By telling you not to take writing advice, I am, in fact, giving you writing advice—however!—if you follow me where I’m headed, you’ll see where I’m coming from. Age-old axioms like “show, don’t tell,” and “good characters have agency,” have kernels of truth to them; that’s why they’re so often repeated, but what comes after? How do writers really get better? My goal here isn’t to rebuke the institutions of writing criticism or education entirely, more so to make the case against generalized platitudes and advocate for contextual and self-motivated methods of improving one’s work.

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Let Your Characters Grow: Why Writers Should Allow Their Creations to Change the Story

The Rewarding Experience of Being a Writing Tutor

You Need To Start Writing With Your Friends

Fragmented Essays, Fragmented Minds: Writing in the Digital Age

Don’t Take Writing Advice

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