The Missouri Review

With Jonathan Franzen’s new novel out this week, there have been reviews and articles considering if it tops The Corrections, which I first read as an undergraduate at Ohio State.  It is a brilliant book, and I was a little jealous and a little dismayed that someone else had written the sort of book I [...]

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But I especially love how what looks at first like a relatively straightforward paragraph of summary is actually a series of small mysteries that raise key questions in the reader’s mind, questions that make us want to keep reading.

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With the end of the fiscal year looming, I’ve fallen a wee bit behind on the blogging. So, a quick link for you. Tip o’the cap to TMR favorite Cheryl Strayed for this link to Danielle Evans blog, who pushes through the typical complaints about MFA programs and discusses several interesting concepts (particularly the novel [...]

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Thanks to everyone who commented or sent an email about my post last week about The Missouri Review‘s submission process and how to interpret (or not) our rejection letters.  A few writers sent me a follow up question (or two) or posted a comment about what I wrote.  You can find some of this good [...]

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[Tara Yellen is the author of the recently published novel After Hours at the Almost Home.] My first semester of teaching, I was a graduate student in my early twenties at the University of Colorado. I’d arrived, I was certain, entirely prepared to teach.  I had articles and short stories — and an arsenal of [...]

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One of our editors recently asked me about creative writing workshops and mentoring. I’m in a PhD program in creative writing, so I’ve had plenty of workshop experiences, good and not so good. No matter how many workshops I’ve attended, though, none of them have paralleled the mentoring I’ve received in working one-on-one with writers. [...]

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