Entries by Charlotte Lit Admin
The Magic of Listening to Stories
by Meghan Modafferi If you tune into NPR, sooner or later you’ll hear the phrase “driveway moment.” It’s when you’ve reached your destination, but you just can’t bring yourself to turn off the radio, to get out of the car. You have to hear the ending of the story that’s airing on, say, This American Life. […]
Origins of a Poem
by Chen Chen This poem started out as a tweet that was a bit more lyrical than usual. One of my favorite joys: when poems come from unexpected, seemingly unpoetic places. I Love You to the Moon & not back, let’s not come back, let’s go by the speed of queer zest & stay up […]
What IS an Essay?
By Randon Billings Noble What is an essay? A basic five-paragraph argument? A long and rambling meditation? A deep dive into academic research? A funny or embarrassing personal anecdote? Yes … but also no. An essay can be so much more than we might first think. Montaigne is known as the father of the essay. […]
All Details are Not Created Equally
by Craig Buchner I have a vivd memory from graduate school at Western Carolina, almost 20 years ago. My thesis director commented on my final project, a collection of a few short stories. He said that the details I chose in those stories were particularly precise and thoughtful. At that time in my writing development, […]
The Healing Potential of Writing
by Elizabeth Hanly Once upon a time, a student told me his story. He told it in the voice of a child, since he was still quite young when the story occurred. The student had been kidnapped in Guatemala. His captors complained about his tears. “My mother complained of my tears too,” the student wrote. […]
