“Authors like Chekhov, Austen, Mansfield, Dickens, Faulkner never studied writing in an academic program. Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing quit school at the age of thirteen. These masters learned craft by analyzing the work of celebrated authors. My advice is to read widely like they did, and notice craft features: word choice, a sentence’s musical replication of a character’s action, the convincing accuracy of an idiosyncratic voice, the tension and pacing of a scene, the symbiotic nature of the story’s elements. When you love something you’ve read, figure out why.” -Nan Cuba

“The writing will never be “done,” so embrace the chaos of highs and lows that come with developing your story into its best possible version. Letting go of perfectionism will make that process easier. ” -Beverly Chukwu

“The key is to rethink revision’s relationship with your practice. When you stop thinking that revision owes you something—a final draft, a sense of completion, a publication—and start thinking about it as a series of opportunities and invitations, you’ll realize just how powerful it is.” -Adam Soto