The title story of my collection, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, began with me falling in love with a word: Madagascar. I fell head-over-heels for the cadence, for the way it evoked a Jacques Cousteau-esque sense of adventure and mystery.  Continue reading...

Here is the latest contribution from Michael Lydon on the writer's art.

My recent Visual Thesaurus essay, "Realism: The Truth of Fiction," set off a brisk debate in the comment section, the gist of which was, "Okay, Michael, realism is the truth of fiction, but what is this 'reality' that realism describes?"  Continue reading...

I used to play at being a writer.

Afternoons in Boston, in my early 20s, I'd pour three fingers of Black Bush whiskey, feed a page into my typewriter, and surround my desk with books by whoever I was reading then — Bill Knott, Marguerite Duras — and add to that bibles and newspapers. I'd open to random pages and write down whatever caught my eye, whatever seemed anachronistic or poignant, then I'd make a hash out of it.  Continue reading...

One of the most important moments in writing my novel, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, came when I realized I could reach outside of reality.  Continue reading...

Michael Lydon, a well-known writer on popular music since the 1960s, has for many years also been writing about writing. Lydon's essays, written with a colloquial clarity, shed fresh light on familiar and not so familiar aspects of the writing art. Here Lydon shines a light on literary realism, the style by which writers "make the imaginary real and the real imaginary."  Continue reading...

In the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, competitors are asked to write incredibly bad opening sentences to incredibly bad novels. The 2010 winner for worst opening line features a comparison to "the world's thirstiest gerbil." Read the whole thing, and the rest of the results, here.