::how to write the book while not writing the book::

by Wendy C. Ortiz

Craft Chaps offers substantive essays by contemporary writers on creative writing practice. Each chap focuses on one aspect of craft and also contains a writing exercise and bibliography for further reading. They are freely downloadable at Sundress Publications and can be printed and stapled as 5x8 booklets.

As creative writing teachers, we've been frustrated by the lack of affordable texts available for our students. Introductory textbooks from major publishers often include anthologies of creative work which significantly increase cost, while book-length works of aesthetic theory privilege one aesthetic perspective.

Craft Chaps aims to democratize creative writing education through making this material accessible for use both inside and outside the academy. We also recognize that "craft" is not a neutral term, and seek to contextualize it within a range of aesthetic and cultural contexts. Through offering chaps from different perspectives and literary communities, we encourage students to resist "universal," often cis, white, male notions of "good" literature.

Genres: Writing

17 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 2020

About the author

Wendy C. Ortiz is the author of Excavation: A Memoir (Future Tense Books, 2014), Hollywood Notebook (Writ Large Press, 2015), and the dreamoir Bruja (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016). In 2016 Bustle named her one of “9 Women Writers Who Are Breaking New Nonfiction Territory.” Her work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, The Rumpus, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the National Book Critics Circle Small Press Spotlight blog. Her writing has appeared in such venues as The New York Times, Joyland, StoryQuarterly, and a year-long series appeared at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Most recently her “Urban Liminal” series of texts appear alongside signature graphic representations of the projects of Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects in the book Amplified Urbanism (2017). Wendy is a psychotherapist in private practice in Los Angeles.

Visit Wendy at wendycortiz.tumblr.com or at her website, wendyortiz.com.