And to the many others whose writing or mentorship found its way into this project: @vl1959.bsky.social, @poetphd.bsky.social, @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social, @bradleyfest.bsky.social, @biblioracle.bsky.social, @manshel.bsky.social, @epikt.bsky.social, @mai-linhhong.bsky.social, @hiphination.bsky.social

A million thanks to @samcohen.bsky.social and @profdgd.bsky.social for their kind work as editors and readers.

We find, then, that literary authors have been acting all along as theorists of composition when they imagine scenes of writing or the failure to write.

The book also tries to break down the divide between literary studies and writing studies. By applying a writing studies lens to fiction, we can better understand the frustrations that authors depict and see how those depictions offer practical lessons to writers of all kinds.

The chapters look to Lucy Ives and DFW on MFA dogma, Nam Le and Philip Roth on ethnic typecasting in the literary market, Sheila Heti and Salvador Plascencia on perfectionism, and Ben Lerner and Bernard Malamud on how writing about other arts (painting, especially) can restore a writer's practice.

Anyway, my book on writer's block in American fiction comes out tomorrow uipress.uiowa.edu/books/writin...

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)

sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essays/welco...

The idea that "learning to use AI" is as complex and professionally advantageous as, say, learning Python in 2007 drives me nuts

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. +

!!! Disgrace and Elizabeth Costello would be my recs—also Waiting for the Barbarians