Columns

I just finished reading Ian McEwan's book, Saturday.

Recently, I attended the joyous funeral of my 94 year old grandmother

What does this muse look like? Is he slightly amorphous, made of smoke, and prone to fits of Yeats in an Irish accent?

When I started this poetry class, I was terrified. Mostly, I feared appearing stupid during critiques. What if I accidentally faulted a poem for having sixteen lines or missed a pristine example of enjambment (I still don't know what this word means)?

Let's acknowledge that wrapping up a short story is difficult.

We hope you all had a wonderful summer.

I confess that I am a chronic eavesdropper, especially on SEPTA, where you can overhear great personal tragedies in the time it takes you to travel from South Philly to City Hall.

Thanks to member support and a dedicated all-volunteer staff of passionate board members, Philadelphia Stories is happy to announce some exciting new programs for writers:

Be sure to pepper your story with clichés. Don’t limit yourself to just textual clichés (sighing with relief, panting like a dog, running at lightning speed), be sure to have clichéd situations and stock characters (innocent young girl meets handsome football player…but evil drug-addled, Mustang-owning hoodlum thwarts the affair).

Spring is a welcome reprieve after this snowy winter, and Philadelphia Stories is looking forward to another busy season of fun events for writers and readers, including: