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

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%

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...

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

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.

Mail call! New from New American Canon, @acolton.bsky.social's Writing Through Writer's Block uipress.uiowa.edu/books/writin...

In my mailbox today, a book well worth reading.

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...?

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...

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. +

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

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!

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!

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)

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?

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

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/