A Smart, Comforting How-To

Guest Post by Betsy Boyd.

I teach writing in an MFA program and have recently begun using Kathy Flann’s book WRITE ON: Secrets to Crafting Better Stories in the classroom. I appreciate the readable humor, relatability, and stealthy brilliance of her advice. Flann’s creative observations and essential recommendations make writing a strong, authentic narrative more achievable—sooner.

One grad student told me that her instruction helps him to ask the big story questions earlier than he might otherwise. I use the book in my own writing life as well. It’s a smart, comforting how-to for anyone drafting a new work, which all writers, at every career stage, must do.

WRITE ON: Secrets to Crafting Better Stories by Kathy Flann. Stay Thirsty Publishing, August 2020.

Reveiwer bio: Betsy Boyd directs the Creative Writing and Publishing Arts MFA program at the University of Baltimore. Her fiction has been published in Kenyon Review, StoryQuarterly, Shenandoah, Eclectica, Del Sol Review, the Pushcart Prize Anthology, and elsewhere.

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Reviewer’s Note: I know Kathy Flann as a Baltimore-based colleague and friend. We are in a longstanding writing group together. Because I admire her work and her critique methods so much, I feel comfortable both using them in my teaching realm and writing a review—totally unbiased. I am especially picky about the craft books I’ll bring into a workshop.