Charlotte Litmosphere

Welcome to Charlotte Lit’s literary arts blog. What you’ll find here: reviews, interviews, craft essays, previews of literary arts events, and anything else that catches our attention, updated most Mondays.

http://www.powells.com/post/readerly-terms/readerly-term-no-002-litmosphere
John Amen

A Few Thoughts on Writing Reviews

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Discussing the dynamics, structures, and techniques inherent to the artistic process heightens one’s ability to connect with work beyond “liking” and “disliking.” If you “like” something, why? What about the artist’s craft made that possible? Reviews can offer a rating, if the publication demands that (it’s a way to hook readers with bottom-line info), but […]

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Paula Martinac

Making Conscious Choices

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In my Introduction to Fiction Writing class, I tell undergraduates that if they learn nothing else in our time together, I’d like them to absorb the idea that creative writing is about making choices. That means selecting everything from plot to characters to setting to POV to theme. It doesn’t mean picking and choosing at random, although—as […]

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Paul Reali

The Schrödinger’s Cat of Writing: “Show, Don’t Tell”

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“Show, don’t tell” is perhaps the most the famous, or infamous, instruction for writers. This reputation is deserved, as the phrase manages to be both absolutely right and dead wrong at the same time. It’s a kind of Schrödinger’s Cat, and knowing whether the rule is dead or alive, in a manner of speaking, can […]

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Charlotte Lit Admin

Excerpt from “The Skin Artist” by George Hovis

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The needles burned worse than last time. But today he was sober. Bill watched the artist’s eyes. The eyes alone seemed to will the tattoo gun’s movement as it trenched the skin of Bill’s forearm, burying its seed of ink. Maybe it was better not to try to make conversation. Just get this over with. […]

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