Note: This is a selection from a larger essay that provides readings of the opening passages from works by Jonathan Franzen, Jhumpa Lahiri, Shawn Wong, Junot Diaz, Sherman Alexie, and ZZ Packer.  About a year ago, I was talking to a younger white writer…

Note: In this essay, I am obviously generalizing about MFA programs, and readers no doubt will argue against such generalizing or bring up exceptions; e.g, witness the responses to the New Yorker blog post by Junot Diaz, “POC vs. MFA.”  But like Diaz,…

When things go wrong with your fiction, you may need to ask yourself:  What do the principles of story tell me about what’s missing in this story or novel?  What do those principles tell me about what needs to be changed or added?  How do the principles…

                                                                        I             “I am a Sansei, a third generation Japanese American.”              This is a line in the first chapter of Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei, which centers on my…

“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.” --James Joyce   “Do it right the first time is insane advice.  Nobody does anything...INTERESTING...right the first...or the twenty-first....or the forty-first...time.  Doing the new means screwing around,…

Dear Submitters, We wanted to send a brief note out to you, those of you considering submitting, and the rest of the world: Please keep an eye on your spam folders for decision emails from us. When we make decisions on pieces, we communicate them to you…

In honor of David Mura's month-long GC Blogger in residence tenure starting Monday, April 6th, we thought we'd post some of David Mura's AWP events here on the blog, so you could hear what he's all about aesthetically, performatively, and culturally.…

Read some of the Twitter love Robin Black got as a Gulf Coast Blogger in Residence. Also, a sneak peek at next months' Blogger in Residence, David Mura.

Noah Eli Gordon was featured at Gulf Coast's February reading -- reading poems from his heftiest collection yet, The Word Kingdom in the Word Kingdom. Here's how Brooklyn Arts Press describes it: "A new collection from one of America’s most intriguing…

For the past few days I have had a question, doubtless familiar to many writers, on my mind: How am I going to end this thing? The thing in question, this time, is my month as Blogger-in-Residence here at the stellar Gulf Coast Literary Journal, but of…