What is spitballing? A way to open up new ideas and possibilities in response to a writer’s story in a way that brightens their imagination and allows them to “steer into the curve,” making the story truly their own. Michael Lowenthal, who teaches a similar workshop method with the Story Lab at Lesley University, gives us some pointers about how to make the process work and what to avoid.
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Want “spitballing” help for one of your own writing obstacles? Subscribers can email a one-minute-or-less recording (Wave, MP4, or M4A format) detailing “What’s Holding You Back?” to 7amnovelist@substack.com. If making a recording seems impossible, submit your responses in writing (under 200 words).
Michael Lowenthal is the author of four novels: The Same Embrace (Dutton, 1998); Avoidance (Graywolf Press, 2002); Charity Girl (Houghton Mifflin, 2007), which was a New York Times Book Review “Editors’ Choice” and a Washington Post “Top Fiction of 2007″ pick; and The Paternity Test (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), an Indie Next selection and a Lambda Literary Award finalist. His short stories and essays have appeared in Tin House, Ploughshares, the Southern Review, Guernica, True Story, and the Kenyon Review, and have been widely anthologized, in such volumes as Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction from the Edge, Bestial Noise: The Tin House Fiction Reader, and Best New American Voices 2005. He has also written for the New York Times Magazine, Boston Magazine, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Out, and many other publications. His first story collection, Sex With Strangers, was published in March 2021. Lowenthal lives in Boston. Since 2003, he has been a faculty member in the low-residency MFA program at Lesley University.
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