Aaron Colton
@acolton.bsky.social
Associate Teaching Professor, Director of First-Year Writing at Emory English. Wrote a book about writer's block in American fiction: https://uipress.uiowa.edu/books/writing-through-writers-block
Pinned
Aaron Colton
@acolton.bsky.social
· May 22
Proofs! Read all about the figure of the blocked writer in American fiction this fall! (With gratitude to the inimitable @samcohen.bsky.social for supporting the project)
It's pub day (birthday 0?) for Writing Through Writer's Block: Lessons from Modern American Fiction! This is a study of how authors have used the archetype of the blocked writer to identify, analyze, and ultimately work through both internal and external constraints on their creative abilities.
Writing Through Writer’s Block
uipress.uiowa.edu
October 29, 2025 at 12:17 AM
It's pub day (birthday 0?) for Writing Through Writer's Block: Lessons from Modern American Fiction! This is a study of how authors have used the archetype of the blocked writer to identify, analyze, and ultimately work through both internal and external constraints on their creative abilities.
What actually beats writer's block: understanding writing as ordinary labor; analyzing standards set by genre, audience, institution, or market; taking charge of one's relationship with those standards; and seeing half-formed ideas through before evaluating their potential. No AI needed
AI can help authors beat writer’s block, says Bloomsbury chief
Publisher last week reported jump in revenue in academic and professional arm thanks to AI licensing deal
www.theguardian.com
October 27, 2025 at 11:29 PM
What actually beats writer's block: understanding writing as ordinary labor; analyzing standards set by genre, audience, institution, or market; taking charge of one's relationship with those standards; and seeing half-formed ideas through before evaluating their potential. No AI needed
Reposted by Aaron Colton
No grift here. Preorder Aaron's book!
So much grift in this zone depends on an understanding of writer's block as intangible or even indescribable. Shamelessly: I touch on the writer's-block self-help industry in the coda of my book (out tmrw)
Writing Through Writer’s Block
uipress.uiowa.edu
October 27, 2025 at 6:00 PM
No grift here. Preorder Aaron's book!
My book (made possible by @samcohen.bsky.social) on why fiction writers are always, always writing about writer's block is out next week (yikes!). It centers critiques of literary institutions/markets and compositional lessons for real writers. Consider pre-ordering! BLOCK40 will discount by 40%
Writing Through Writer’s Block
uipress.uiowa.edu
October 24, 2025 at 7:08 PM
My book (made possible by @samcohen.bsky.social) on why fiction writers are always, always writing about writer's block is out next week (yikes!). It centers critiques of literary institutions/markets and compositional lessons for real writers. Consider pre-ordering! BLOCK40 will discount by 40%
Reposted by Aaron Colton
It’s the official publication day for Painful Forms! I’m so pleased to see the book out in the world and grateful forever to @uncpress.bsky.social for making that happen. uncpress.org/978146968894...
Painful Forms
In the wake of World War II, Americans struggled to grasp the shifting scale of violence brought on by the nuclear era. To grapple with the overwhelming suff...
uncpress.org
October 21, 2025 at 11:09 PM
It’s the official publication day for Painful Forms! I’m so pleased to see the book out in the world and grateful forever to @uncpress.bsky.social for making that happen. uncpress.org/978146968894...
Reposted by Aaron Colton
Another plug that my lab @nmsu.edu will be admitting up to 2 PhD students this year (application deadline: January 15th). We study (eyewitness) memory, metacognition, and individual differences. More information here:
www.grab-lab.com
www.grab-lab.com
October 17, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Another plug that my lab @nmsu.edu will be admitting up to 2 PhD students this year (application deadline: January 15th). We study (eyewitness) memory, metacognition, and individual differences. More information here:
www.grab-lab.com
www.grab-lab.com
Reposted by Aaron Colton
I don’t think a long book is even primarily about plot, or character, or any of the patterned information on its pages. A long book is practicing over time a way of being in the world. Reading even a very good summary is not the same as giving over some portion of your own life to that practice.
October 13, 2025 at 8:41 PM
I don’t think a long book is even primarily about plot, or character, or any of the patterned information on its pages. A long book is practicing over time a way of being in the world. Reading even a very good summary is not the same as giving over some portion of your own life to that practice.
Reposted by Aaron Colton
Mail call! New from New American Canon, @acolton.bsky.social's Writing Through Writer's Block uipress.uiowa.edu/books/writin...
October 9, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Mail call! New from New American Canon, @acolton.bsky.social's Writing Through Writer's Block uipress.uiowa.edu/books/writin...
Reposted by Aaron Colton
In my mailbox today, a book well worth reading.
October 6, 2025 at 5:39 PM
In my mailbox today, a book well worth reading.
Reposted by Aaron Colton
I think we’re really going to have to do a lot more of this. A massive deprogramming so that people can read more than ten words at a time without anxiety.
www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?
www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?
Universities teaching literature students how to cope with long novels
Critics blame GCSE English for deterring teenagers from the subject, describing the literature syllabus as boring and repetitive
www.thetimes.com
October 4, 2025 at 2:49 PM
I think we’re really going to have to do a lot more of this. A massive deprogramming so that people can read more than ten words at a time without anxiety.
www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?
www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?
I'm interviewed in @forbes.com this week about how students can't develop as writers if they don't also develop as readers, how AI tools diminish students' original thinking, and—so long as it remains a genre—how to write a meaningful college admissions essay.
www.forbes.com/sites/lizdoe...
www.forbes.com/sites/lizdoe...
What Teens Lose When AI Writes The College Essay
More students are using ChatGPT to draft college essays, but at what cost? Experts warn it hinders critical thinking and leaves them unprepared for college writing.
www.forbes.com
August 20, 2025 at 10:34 PM
I'm interviewed in @forbes.com this week about how students can't develop as writers if they don't also develop as readers, how AI tools diminish students' original thinking, and—so long as it remains a genre—how to write a meaningful college admissions essay.
www.forbes.com/sites/lizdoe...
www.forbes.com/sites/lizdoe...
Reposted by Aaron Colton
Increasingly, what makes sense to me is framing a class as a *dialogic community* and assessing students on their contributions as members of that community. Such contributions can be and should be as spontaneous as they are regulated. +
August 18, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Increasingly, what makes sense to me is framing a class as a *dialogic community* and assessing students on their contributions as members of that community. Such contributions can be and should be as spontaneous as they are regulated. +
Reposted by Aaron Colton
teachers!
excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.
take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com
excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.
take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com
AGAINST AI
against-a-i.com
August 15, 2025 at 5:39 PM
teachers!
excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.
take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com
excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.
take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com
Reposted by Aaron Colton
Really appreciated this discussion with @tressiemcphd.bsky.social on AI in higher ed and what we and students are losing in terms of opportunities to go from struggling to mastering something, and learning as a relational/social process. www.nytimes.com/audio/app/20...
August 13, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Really appreciated this discussion with @tressiemcphd.bsky.social on AI in higher ed and what we and students are losing in terms of opportunities to go from struggling to mastering something, and learning as a relational/social process. www.nytimes.com/audio/app/20...
The book, it has a cover!
July 15, 2025 at 5:48 PM
The book, it has a cover!
Reposted by Aaron Colton
Review deadline extended: July 9!
There is still time to apply to the Curator of Literary & Poetry Collections position at Emory!
apply.interfolio.com/167978
I’m very happy to speak to folks about this role! This is a phenom. opportunity to work with a stellar staff and unparalleled collections!
There is still time to apply to the Curator of Literary & Poetry Collections position at Emory!
apply.interfolio.com/167978
I’m very happy to speak to folks about this role! This is a phenom. opportunity to work with a stellar staff and unparalleled collections!
June 26, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Review deadline extended: July 9!
There is still time to apply to the Curator of Literary & Poetry Collections position at Emory!
apply.interfolio.com/167978
I’m very happy to speak to folks about this role! This is a phenom. opportunity to work with a stellar staff and unparalleled collections!
There is still time to apply to the Curator of Literary & Poetry Collections position at Emory!
apply.interfolio.com/167978
I’m very happy to speak to folks about this role! This is a phenom. opportunity to work with a stellar staff and unparalleled collections!
Reposted by Aaron Colton
Hello! I would be happy to help. You can email me lollardfish at gmail with a draft of a piece and a pitch and I will help you refine it to improve your chances of being published. I mean this. I've helped a few dozen people these last six months.
The newest budget numbers out of NSF are... not good. We're looking at worse than worst case scenarios for U.S. research universities. That's in addition to all the other attacks. Every person w/ a word processer and an hour of time should be penning an op-ed to their local papers this weekend.
June 1, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Hello! I would be happy to help. You can email me lollardfish at gmail with a draft of a piece and a pitch and I will help you refine it to improve your chances of being published. I mean this. I've helped a few dozen people these last six months.
Proofs! Read all about the figure of the blocked writer in American fiction this fall! (With gratitude to the inimitable @samcohen.bsky.social for supporting the project)
May 22, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Proofs! Read all about the figure of the blocked writer in American fiction this fall! (With gratitude to the inimitable @samcohen.bsky.social for supporting the project)
Reposted by Aaron Colton
I'd like to announce my innovative response to the challenge of teaching writing in a world of large language models. I call it the "12-student class." One instructor, 12 students. Best news is it already has a proven track record. Where's my millions in investor cash?
March 26, 2025 at 12:51 PM
I'd like to announce my innovative response to the challenge of teaching writing in a world of large language models. I call it the "12-student class." One instructor, 12 students. Best news is it already has a proven track record. Where's my millions in investor cash?
Reposted by Aaron Colton
JOB! Please share. The Emory Writing Program is hiring one-year postdoctoral teaching fellows renewable for up to 3 yrs. 3/3 load, $55K w/ benefits. Themed FYW seminars capped at 16 & program assessment w/ opps in later years for course development & admin. App due 4/7. apply.interfolio.com/162654
Apply - Interfolio
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apply.interfolio.com
February 6, 2025 at 4:57 PM
JOB! Please share. The Emory Writing Program is hiring one-year postdoctoral teaching fellows renewable for up to 3 yrs. 3/3 load, $55K w/ benefits. Themed FYW seminars capped at 16 & program assessment w/ opps in later years for course development & admin. App due 4/7. apply.interfolio.com/162654
Reposted by Aaron Colton
Hey! @post45.bsky.social just launched 2 new prizes, each worth $500, 1 for grad students & those w/in 5 years of PhD, the other for contingent folks. Deadline Jan 15. All submissions considered for publication—please submit—and share! post45.org/prizes-cfp/
September 8, 2023 at 5:10 PM
Hey! @post45.bsky.social just launched 2 new prizes, each worth $500, 1 for grad students & those w/in 5 years of PhD, the other for contingent folks. Deadline Jan 15. All submissions considered for publication—please submit—and share! post45.org/prizes-cfp/