Draft: the journal of process

12/09/2022

We'll be at the Bookfair in Iowa City on April 8 for Mission Creek Festival 2023! All literature events are free and open to the public, but if you want the full festival experience, early bird passes are on sale now at www.missioncreekfestival.com

01/17/2022

Issue 7 is here! Explore drafts of director Chris Radcliff’s film THE STRANGE ONES & Carmen Maria Machado’s story THE HUSBAND STITCH, along with a never-before-published draft from ✨Ursula Le Guin👑..

Iowa City artist Mark Vollenweider’s amazing portraits inspired by Machado’s story are also available for purchase on our website. https://www.draftjournal.com/issues/issue-7

Featuring a never-before-published draft from Ursula Le Guin, a deep dive into "The Husband Stitch" by Carmen Maria Machado, and script drafts of "The Strange Ones" by Chris Radcliff

11/05/2021

So pleased to be included within this auspicious group of Iowa City literary journals via this Andersonian-inspired shoot at FilmScene.

Issue 7, featuring a screenplay by Chris Radcliff for the film The Strange Ones, first and final drafts of Carmen Machado's "The Husband Stitch", and a never-before-seen draft from Ursula le Guin, will be out soon! Preorder, as ever, available now at our website.

09/22/2021

❌From the Annals of Rejection❌
“I’m afraid we can’t use it…”

A most genteel rejection from the The Threepenny Review

09/14/2021

WRITERS’ SPACES spaces that fascinate us. We love to see where a writer spends her time and the objects she keeps within her creative field. Visit our website at https://www.draftjournal.com/ to see even more spaces from our contributors. We’ll be sharing more pics here, too! Happy drafting.

10/09/2020

We've got news!

The Fail Safe, a podcast that explores why failure is essential to the creative process, is now part of the draft journal website. Woop!

Find episode descriptions and peruse the many brilliant authors—including Roxane Gay, Kelly Link, Alexander Chee, Leslie Jamison, and more—who've chatted about their own failures and triumphs.

https://www.draftjournal.com/fail-safe-podcast

The Fail Safe podcast explores how today’s most successful writers grapple with and learn from creative failure, providing encouragement for anyone who’s ever wanted to write. Created & hosted by Rachel Yoder, the first episode aired in June 2016.

05/06/2020

Taking it back to our roots with Issue 0 - https://mailchi.mp/285704839278/taking-it-back-to-our-roots-with-issue-0

Before there was draft, there was draft: the preview, of which we printed a 50-copy run and handed out to folks at AWP 2010 in Washington D.C. in order to promote this idea that we had. This issue has never before been for sale.

03/26/2020

Amy Butcher shares an amazing 20-step exercise adapted from poet Jim Simmerman’s “Twenty Little Poetry Projects,” with a downloadable PDF available at our site

an amazing 20-step exercise adapted from poet  Jim Simmerman’s  “Twenty Little Poetry Projects”

03/25/2020

Mary Miller serves up a writing prompt to do with a friend, even if you're at a distance

a collaborative exercise in literary genetics

03/25/2020

Check out a writing prompt from draft featured today in the The University of Iowa Pentacrest Museums wonderful Nature Journal Challenge project. Great for kids and adults alike

NATURE JOURNAL CHALLENGE DAY 10:

A special part of this project has turned out to be the interaction with other groups in developing the daily prompts. Today's prompt comes from Draft: the journal of process, featuring first and final drafts of stories, essays, and poems along with author interviews about the creative process. The following was submitted by Draft and adapted from an exercise by artist/writer Lita Kurth:

"Find a leaf. Regard this leaf and describe it in great detail (size—use estimated numbers—color, shape, flaws, all its little parts) until you notice ~something~. Describe the discovery.

Now write TO the leaf, anything from a respectful letter to a rant.

Finally, let the leaf write back.

Save the leaf, closing it between the pages of your journal for safe keeping."

We know these are personal projects and journeys, but would love to see what you wrote to the leaf. Share if you'd like!

03/24/2020

A leaf—or really any object near or far—serves as inspiration for this writing prompt from Lita Kurth | Be well, writing friends

a three-part exercise which seems to work especially well for beginning writers

03/20/2020

If you were to make a map of your story, what would it look like? Hunter Liguore walks us through a wonderful world-building exercise via draft. Check it out!

https://www.draftjournal.com/writing-exercises/world-building-through-map-making

If you were to make a map of your story, what would it look like?

03/03/2020

"If you start with a piece that’s really small, you can do anything. The story could fail miserably or it could be a masterpiece—either way, there is possibility.” ISSUE 0 now available, featuring gems like this from Mary Miller along with her micro and macro drafts of the story originally known as "Once Upon a Time, Bananas"

https://www.draftjournal.com/issues/issue-0

03/02/2020

NEW+OLD+SPECIAL ISSUE 0 is here, featuring a micro-turned-macro story by Mary Miller as well as drafts of the award-winning story SAGITTARIUS from Greg Hrbek!

Order online or find us at the .

We're back, baby!

https://www.draftjournal.com/issues/issue-0

01/10/2020

Watch Carmen Maria Machado talk about her work here via The Tuesday Agency, and then check out her process of writing her popular short story THE HUSBAND STITCH in Issue 8 of draft, forthcoming later this year!

Before the Show is an artist interview series recorded at The Tuesday Agency in downtown Iowa City. As writers, musicians and other artists travel to town we...

09/12/2019

Up on our new site!: Explore Iowa City artist Mark Vollenweider's process in creating the iconic cover image for Issue 4!

https://draftjournal.com/mark-vollenweider

Mark Vollenweider, an Iowa City-based artist, shows us his process of creating the cover image for Issue 4.

09/02/2019

Issue 3 cover art comes from Christian Zink, a tattoo artist in New York City. He and John O’Hara (also a tattooist at The Queens Ink Tattoo) collaborated on a tattoo, inked onto John’s skin for our cover. Check out the process, from sketch to tattoo, on our website.

https://www.draftjournal.com/christian-zink

Issue 3 cover art comes from Christian Zink, a tattoo artist in New York City. He and John O’Hara (also a tattooist at The Queen’s Ink ) collaborated on a tattoo, inked onto John’s skin for our cover.

08/28/2019

All issues of draft now available, with special discounts for classroom orders.

08/28/2019

08/02/2019

It's been a while but we're back, with a new website that features process photos of our cover art along with pics of the spaces where writers write. Take a look and stay tuned for some new issues, coming at you soon! https://www.draftjournal.com/

We ask the artists we work with to chronicle their process as they create cover art for each issue. Below you’ll find their work at every stage of the creative process.

07/08/2019

Look for some exciting new developments coming soon from draft... We're excited to be back in action.

http://gph.is/1oXJHnO

03/12/2019

draft is excited to join the Mission Creek Book Fair in April. Look at this amazing lineup!

Take a look at our amazing literary lineup for 2019 featuring Glory Edim of Well-Read Black Girl fame, The New Yorker poetry editor & scholar Kevin Young, literary critic & poet Stephanie Burt, best-selling novelist R.O. Kwon, award-winning poet Jericho Brown, an astonishing Visual Poetry Synthesizer (what!?), and literary video games (yep) thanks to lit+tech mastermind Maxwell Neely-Cohen.

And don't forget about the Friday evening Lit Walk all over downtown and Small Press & Literary Journal Book Fair at The Mill on Saturday.

Perhaps most astonishing of all: all lit events are free!

Details regarding times and locations at http://missioncreekfestival.com

06/27/2018

"The third time I tried writing the novel, I was sitting with my laptop in a frozen yogurt shop."

How many times have YOU tried to write your novel? Nicole Dieker examines her five tries today at [marginalia]!

http://draftjournal.com/blog/marginalia-nicole-dieker/

06/21/2018

to draft editor Mark Polanzak reading on the Lit Walk at Revival Clothing Store and Rachel Yoder reading at A More Perfect Union—both events during Mission Creek Festival this past April in Iowa City

06/19/2018

Need some writing inspiration? Check out & then write your own 1000 for today. You won’t regret it. https://t.co/mIbCFfbcpB

“I am finally catching up on all the tweets and seriously, if you are looking for some inspiration, it is an extremely awesome hashtag. Proud of you guys.”

05/08/2018

A big welcome to Grace Ridnour, our new [marginalia] Web Editor!

Grace will be graduating from the University of Iowa with a B.A. in English and a minor in Rhetoric and Persuasion in just a few short days. She writes:

"In the short 22 years I have been on this earth I have marched front and center in the Rose Bowl Parade, worked at Walt Disney World, and will be moving to Ankara, Turkey in a few short months. After spending this last year finishing the publishing track at Iowa and wrapping up the publishing of a chapbook for the Iowa Chapbook Prize, I have found a love and passion for editing and helping creators see their creative vision come to life. I'm so excited to be joining the team at draft because I think it's important for writers to realize great work doesn't happen with the snap of your fingers or the click clack of a keyboard; great work is a process of love, hate, edits, frustration, inspiration, all circling back and culminating into love again."

Grace brings a maturity well beyond her years, a wonderful foundation in publishing and editing thanks to U of I, and an adventurous spirit. We're thrilled to have her on board. Be on the lookout for great things to come this year on [marginalia]!

Wondering how to submit a piece for Grace's consideration? Check out our guidelines here: https://draftjournal.submittable.com/submit

04/11/2018

We're thrilled to hear that Emily Nemens has been named the new Editor of The Paris Review. We here at draft admire her editorial work and, back in the day, even interviewed her about the editing life at The Southern Review. Check out the interview on our site...and get ready for a wonderful new era at TPR.

Congrats, Emily!

http://draftjournal.com/

We're looking for writers, editors, student-writers, interested readers, disinterested readers, champions and adversaries of the writing world, writing profs and instructors, artists, and any combination thereof to write something for our ongoing web series MARGINALIA. This can be anything: writing....

04/10/2018

We had an amazing time at Mission Creek Festival last week co-hosting this Lit Walk stop with YesYes Books at Revival Clothing Store. Here, draft editor Mark Polanzak reads his story GIANT which appears in the current Best American Nonrequired Reading.

Thanks to all the good folks in Iowa City for hosting us and putting together such a fun and inspiring week.

Mark Polanzak reads at Revival Clothing Store during round 2 of Lit Walk, hosted by YesYes Books and Draft: the journal of process/The Fail Safe

02/23/2018

How many houses does it take to write a book? How many laptops? Tattoos? Notebooks? Options for chapter orders?

Amy P. Knight, author of the novel LOST, ALMOST, takes a look at process—by the numbers—today on the draft blog.

http://draftjournal.com/blog/amy-knight/

[marginalia] A Book, In Numbers : : Amy P. Knight Leave a reply Lost, Almost is a book about people who see the world through their work in science and math. In that spirit, here is a look at the process of writing, publishing, and marketing the book, in numbers. 10: years ago I wrote the beginning....

12/12/2017

Drafts at their finest, courtesy https://t.co/caXknQMuU7

“Finding first draft inspiration in the processes of Gustave Flaubert, Ann Patchett, and more. https://t.co/Vqx6cjMryJ”