Fiction Craft Essays

Sarah Twombly reflects on the process of writing autobiographical fiction, comparing it to both origami and astrophysics. The author has been working on a novel for over a decade, a work that blurs the lines between fact and fiction, truth and memory. Through this process, she grapples with questions of identity, time, and emotional truth, ultimately crafting characters who are both intimately familiar and entirely invented.

Beth Kephart explores the art of writing a memoir in pieces; a fragmented, nonlinear form that mirrors the craft of handmaking a blank book. She draws a parallel between assembling a memoir and bookbinding, both acts of gathering disparate elements and shaping them into a cohesive whole.