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Dear PSB Writer-in-Residence 2020,

            Last spring, a writer-friend and I started a creative writing club at Pelham Academy, a high school for girls recovering from trauma. Our friend, Lindsay, who works there, prepared us for our first session. She said it would be best to do most of the talking ourselves, especially at the beginning; the students might be nervous and we shouldn’t expect them to open up much.  I was grateful for the tips, since I was pretty nervous myself.

Writing is a strange job. Oftentimes, I'll spend a whole day thinking about my characters, outlining, and even drafting and come away feeling like I haven't accomplished anything. On more difficult days it feels impossible to start. I wake up, move through my morning, and sit down at my desk only to have the Big Fear land on my shoulders. 

Around this time two years ago, my boyfriend would ask me things like “How’s writing going?” and “What’s your novel about?” and I’d feel the type of dread usually reserved for having multiple cavities filled.

You may have noticed that there are a lot of superhero movies coming out this year. This might seem a bit overwhelming but DON'T WORRY. As a comic book fan, I am very used to the feeling of being overwhelmed by too many superheroes. I can help guide you through decades of complicated and interconnected storylines with a curated list so you can read up on the characters before the movie comes out. Impress your friends by getting all the inside jokes!

You may have noticed that there are a lot of superhero movies coming out this year. This might seem a bit overwhelming but DON'T WORRY. As a comic book fan, I am very used to the feeling of being overwhelmed by too many superheroes. I can help guide you through decades of complicated and interconnected storylines with a curated list so you can read up on the characters before the movie comes out. Impress your friends by getting all the inside jokes!

How should this book look? It is one of the more difficult and potentially important questions publishers need to answer. The wrong cover could prevent the right readers from picking up the book. It could create expectations the book was never intended to meet. Or (perhaps even worse) the book could just disappear into the mass of new titles published every day and never get picked up at all. And, of course, you don’t just have to answer this question about the cover; publishers also need to think about how big the book will be, what shape it will be, what texture its cover will have.

This year, instead of publishing one massive exquisite corpse sometime early next year, we’ll be publishing it in chunks as we go along. Think of it as a semi-regular literary journal with contributions from both established authors and new voices.

Here are the entries for March and April 2019. (Click here to see January and February)

First, where we left off at the end of February