Category Archives: Stefen
Isaac Babel and Flash Fiction
My short essay about Isaac Babel’s flash fiction is now up on SmokeLong Quarterly, a website dedicated to the form of flash. The essay is part of their “Flash, Back” series that “asks writers to discuss flash fiction that may … Continue reading
Effective Use of Cliche in Narrative
Along with “Show, don’t tell,” the other writerly maxim most commonly batted about is to avoid the use of clichés. Nothing marks a novice writer (or one who isn’t really trying or not paying attention) more than sentences filled with … Continue reading
Hitchcock Truffaut and Some Thoughts on Craft
Artists of all types – writers, painters, composers, et al. – have always drawn inspiration from work by other artists in their chosen fields. I’m often inspired to write after reading a really good story, one I find beautiful or … Continue reading
Experimenter: The Stanley Milgram Story
Normally I don’t write blog entries about work I publish. Too self-promoting, too “look at me, look at me!” even this selfie age. Blogs should be about something other than the writer. In this case I’m making an exception. I … Continue reading
A Writing Prompt
Recently I’ve been thinking about how the arts – writing, painting, photography, music – inspire each other, not just in like fields, but also across genres. The idea was prompted when I watched the documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut. In the documentary there … Continue reading
Bad Hair Day – Free Writing
It’s raining here in DC. Has been for two weeks. I was caught in a shower and afterwards realized that I treated the event with a lot more annoyance than it warranted. So I did some free writing about the … Continue reading
The Panic in Needle Park
While reading a book have you ever wondered: how would this style translate to film? Not the story’s events or a character’s appearance. The actual style, the tone of the writing. Visually, how would a director replicate Bellow’s exuberance, Cheever’s … Continue reading
On Rejection
A writer submitting work for publication is a writer experiencing rejection. This is simply a truth of the literary world. I’m sure there are those lucky and talented writers whose earliest work was snapped up by some journal, editor or … Continue reading
Happy Birthday, Frank O’Hara!
March 27th is the birthday of a favorite poet of mine, Frank O’Hara. Little known today, perhaps because he was killed in a car accident in 1966 at the age of forty, O’Hara was a leading figure in the New … Continue reading
Stefen Styrsky 