It's Called Creative Criticism

And no, it has nothing to do with giving constructive feedback

The Light in William Styron’s Darkness Visible

Happy Sunday, Writers at Work!

I encourage everyone to submit to

M. E. Rothwell

’s Substack, The Books That Made Us. It goes beyond the usual tell-us-your-favorite- or career-shaping book prompt and asks us to consider the books that stay with us, maybe even haunt us. It’s a great guest-post opportunity!

Before you do (!), I want to share a bit about the subgenre that this essay and all similar essays fall into: creative criticism.

The best part about writing on Substack—unlike other platforms—is that the quality of writing is so high. It’s like an M.F.A. program in that it can show you the best examples of various genres of both journalism and creative writing.

You can’t game the system on Substack. It’s great to know tricks and get tips, but ultimately, to succeed here, your writing has to be exceptional.

Writing exceptional prose is a lot easier when you know the genres, structures, and modes of creative writing and journalism. You don’t have to be a scholar, just have a foundational understanding o…