Beyond a Book Review: The "What if?" of The Deep Sky
The future Yume Kitasei imagined for us is one that mirrors our present when it comes to diversity.
book review
Beyond a Book Review: Grief and Hope in All We Are Told Not to Touch
Why do we write? How do we navigate grief? What gives us hope?
Beyond a Book Review: Once Upon a Time in Dovelion
Read Shawna's review of a novel with a built-in writing prompt for you to try.
Beyond a Book Review: Narrators and Compassion in Finding La Negrita
Shawna Ayoub highlights the technique of using multiple narrators to foster compassion in a story, and offers an exercise so you can practice doing the same.
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Beyond a Book Review: Research as connection in Through the Banks of the Red Cedar
Shawna Ayoub moves "beyond the book review" in not only recommending great books by diverse writers, but highlighting a technique to apply to your own writing.
Book recommendation: A Friend Sails in on a Poem
The clear takeaway, the living arc of this book, is how a love of poetry and a commitment to a writing life, or any artistic life, can bind two people to one another.
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Beyond a Book Review: Intuition in River Woman, River Demon
Shawna Ayoub highlights the strength of character and intuition in Jennifer Givhan's new novel, and offers a writing exercise to help us achieve a similar effect in our own work.
Beyond a Book Review: Timeline(s) in Becoming AppalAsian
Shawna Ayoub explores Lisa Kwong's memoir as an example of using chronology to organize a life story, and offers a three-step exercise you can apply to yours.
Beyond a Book Review: Unwieldy Creatures and retelling our stories
Shawna Ayoub explores a retelling of a beloved classic and points out how retellings can provide structure and an end point from the start of writing.
Beyond a Book Review: Containers as safe spaces in Nonwhite and Woman
Shawna Ayoub highlights the use of word-count containers to focus sometimes-painful stories in a collection of 131 essays under 300 words each.