The Guardian reports on this upcoming television series of Rabbit, Run

Second to the professor who taught his work, John Updike is our #1 on the list of Men We Hate. This was the first English class Alyssa and I had together, so, naturally, we sat together so we could chatter like little school girls over the 1960s Contemporary Literature we read.

Sure, shit-talking a dead (thank Jesus) writer isn't the classiest thing to do. Especially in front of a professor who --and I will frame this as delicately as possible -- definitely masturbates to The Maple Family series. It's petty, it doesn't accomplish anything, I'm disrespectful, I need stronger grounds for an argument against Updike beyond the notion that the man who taught Rabbit, Run failed to anticipate our objection of a text that so vulgarly painted women in the oil paint sludge of their sexual employment for men.

As the upcoming series director, Andrew Davies, notes: "Some of the things have been a bit difficult for young intelligent females to cope with... but I think [Updike's] insight into both men and women is just so extraordinary"

In contrast, I think that Updike had insight equal to putting your penis in a toaster.


I did not finish reading Rabbit, Run.
It is one of few books I've abandoned, period, and perhaps one of two that I did not finish reading in college. Apparently, the baby drowns.

So let's address what information I barely remember from that penny dreadful: the novel was a thinly veiled recount of Updike's own extramarital affairs with seemingly no plot or continued conflict beyond what Rabbit created for himself. Oh no, making love to two women is hard, which one do I dispose? Why do I still feel like an empty, wrinkled scrotum? Things were so much easier when all that was expect of me was to literally run away from my problems.

I could go fish through my college notebooks for the page-by-page summary I created for it, or the contextual notes I jotted down, or how redemption and Kierkegaard's philosophy shape Updike's writing. Except, if I did all of that, I'd probably induce a brain aneurism.

So instead, let's come up with the two most ridiculous notions of Updike's writing that I've failed to appreciate:

1. Rabbit's existentialism as an excuse for his reckless actions and vulgar thoughts
2. Rabbit's disrespect for, manipulation of, and disposal of women [this might lack parallelism, so ad hominem me and sue me]

Kierkegaard, known as "The Father of Existentialism" in philosophy, is the thundering bass guitar of this self-indulgent cacophony. Who knows, maybe there is some redemption to his beliefs, but certainly not as they serve Rabbit, Run. Rabbit's existentialism is the average mid-life crisis: I'm old (he's 26) , life is ephemeral, my wife doesn't look hot anymore. The "spiritual enlightenment" path that Rabbit takes to redeem his soul from God's alienation is to ditch his pregnant wife, have a months long extramarital affair, and move in with that younger woman.

From my recollection, our class stopped at analyzing Kierkegaard after assigning passages of the text with different stages of existential crisis, thereby downplaying the fact that Rabbit alienated himself by zigzagging back & forth between his wife, Janice, and his side-chick, Ruth. "Zigzagging", specifically, because that is what a rabbit does when distressed to escape death, as my classmates and professor noted. As though between each zig and zag, a rabbit has sex with the zig, gets tired, goes for the zag, who rejects him, then back again to the zig.

Alienation through self-destructive behavior is not uncommon - ask my depression. It happens - but it is not excusable. If you drink to forget that you're upset, and you... I don't know, accidentally drown your baby...whether or not you blackout, it's socially expected to show remorse for "what you could not control" Because it starts with that first choice: that reaction to despair. "My ennui made me cheat on you" or "It's not my fault that you felt morose and drank to forget that I cheated on you and then accidentally drowned our baby" is the equivalent of Albert Camus' "The sun made me do it" No, bird brains: your narcissism, impulsivity, and -10 Ability Score in Kohlberg's Morality made you do it.

Updike said that this novel was an exploration of "the everyman" in middle class 1950s and his conflicting feelings about sex, religion,, death, sex, identity...sex.

It's difficult for me to identify Updike's tone - it's certainly not condemnation... maybe complacency, this exploration of this changing era that somehow tolerates marital and extramarital sexual assault. My regrettable experiences on Tinder & other "dating apps" take me back to Rabbit, Run, to this man who is the protagonist of everyone's world, who launch into phrases like "please tell me you're here for the ass-eats (heart eyes emoji) " or "well f--k you, b---h" when faced with rejection, or abandons you before you can abandon them (ghosting)

It makes me wonder if Updike, had he his own moral compass, could have written Rabbit, Run with more than ennui. Imagine if his tale of the everyman was a story of The Everyman, a character traveling through sins and refining his soul before physical or spiritual death... but maybe I've spent too much time with my tarot deck.

What does this text say of men of the past and of men of the present? What does this say about their viewpoints of women, or how women really react to these cave man brains and primal dicks? What discussions could our primarily female class have had about this text if our voices weren't reactionary to our male professor's, but instead interpersonal, as though he weren't in the room? What viewpoints could we have exchanged, or what realization could I have come to about this text? What could I have felt beyond disrespect, beyond objectification... what was my existentialism?


I don't know. I cannot speak. I'm simply a walking vagina.

Read more of Cam's work on Floodmark.

There’s a story inside of you crying to get out… but you don’t know how it wants to speak. Does it want the fragmented barking of poetry? The snapping back-and-forth of a play or a screenplay? The roar of prose? The snack of flash-fiction? 

You’ve bitten off more than you can chew - you’re sure of it this time.

When you become a writer of various platforms, part of the labor is deciding which way to share a story. I’ve dabbled with all of the previously mentioned genres, and no doubt there are more to try. But how do you know which fits best?

Well, it entirely depends on what you have to say.

The simplest route is to write, of course. Write without pausing to paragraph break or indent a line… maybe without even punctuation. Christen yourself Faulkner and run like The Sound and the Fury that you are. [Run Ons, Faulkner, Run Ons!] 

Photoshop courtesy of Cam Best.

Sometimes, the writing will find its voice: it will shout “Poetry!” or “Prose!” or the like, and you’ll be able to start revising.

Other times might not be so lucky…

Should that be the case, what I’ll do is let the words stew. Write until the words fail you, then put your laptop or notebook on the stove burner and cover it with a lid … 

Please don’t actually do that.

When you’ve left it alone for long enough, reread it. If no format jumps out to you, now is the time to brandish your axes.

Hack off the legs of dialogue. Sever the toes of dialogue tags. Cut up the character description, the scenic description, the character actions, the environmental actions! Dismember the bastard!

Now what do you see?

If your story’s instinct is to drive forward with dialogue, you’ve likely got a play or screenplay on your hands. I find that both formats allow me to create more “raw” dialogue that doesn’t need to be cushioned and supported with the bra of character and scenic descriptions. It is all natural. The story speaks for itself [get it?] 

Telling the two apart is tricky. WIth my screenplay experience, I feel much more protective over the characters. I want to describe their backstories, I’m already specifically visualizing the story…  I allow myself to be much more creative in my scene directions in screenplays because I often direct my own film projects and laugh at my own jokes.  As for plays, to me, those scene directions manifest as instructions for movement. 

My screenplays also have much shorter, episodic scenes; my plays are typically one setting, one scene. Of course, my style for plays isn’t the same as yours, so take a look at your own writing to identify those distinguishing features.

If your story’s instinct is on character description and evolution, it might focus more towards prose. 

Dialogue might trip you up in this -- it might be necessary to first distinguish between spoken dialogue and internal dialogue. A paragraph heavy with spoken dialogue could suggest a play… a paragraph heavy with internal dialogue suggests prose. Prose tends to boast character more than the others, whereas characters in plays tend to… play nicely with others [my puns are on fire today. Or, as the kids say, lit. Imagine: lit literature… Lit lit!]

Prose allows for layers to unfold over and over for the reader, whereas plays are filtered through the director’s lens and displayed to the spectator. With your audience in mind, prose encourages frequent revisiting, tasting the various spices in a dish. But no platform encourages reinterpretation more frequently than poetry.

Poetry is more than eager to roast the other platforms. It certainly would never stoop so low as to dialogue! And character development? Why, only if your childhood memorabilia of a music box in the deceptive shape of a trombone is a character… 

My own poetry likes to boast its way into epic stories, blending spoken word poetry with traditional. So when I’m trying to decide if I want a poem to read for three minutes into a microphone versus thirty seconds into an ezine, I have to decide how complete my story will be. Traditional poetry will focus on snapshot moments and contain more blank space than blank verse. Spoken word will tell a story in a manner far different from prose, varying in various components. My spoken word poetry focuses greatly on sound: alliteration, assonance, consonance, you name it. It must be heard out loud. But it has a greater spectrum of emotions in those five hundred or so words, more than a short story or piece of flash fiction would reasonably have. Believe it or not, spoken poetry’s voice isn’t just a scream into a microphone.

There are many elements of writing to consider when selecting a genre: character presence, environmental presence, emotional variation, brevity of the moment of the story, dialogue… Experiment with different formats until you find your piece’s voice, for it will speak.

Flow chart courtesy of Cam Best.

Read more of Cam's work on Floodmark.

If you're a writer who writes for yourself, with no aspirations to publish, that's wonderful. I hope you're finding lots of inspiration here at Floodmark. If you're a writer who's been inspired to write something you do want to publish, this is for you.


If you have ever submitted anything for publication before, and/or if you are planning to submit anything for publication, the odds are that you have written a cover letter and/or pitch letter. Cover letters can seem like a throwaway, something you have to add to a submission because a submissions manager demands it.


Not quite. Since a lot of editors, especially with smaller magazines, are underpaid (or not paid at all) and overworked, a cover letter can do some important work in making an editor feel positively towards your piece. (A caveat: no bad work has ever been published simply because of a good cover letter. On the other hand, good work has been published in spite of bad cover letters). So, here are some tips for writing a good cover letter/pitch letter:

1. Address it to a specific editor, even if you're sending it through a submission manager, or to a general submissions email address. Most magazines have a masthead and/or a list of editorial staff somewhere on their website, so, although it might take some digging, you can find the poetry (or fiction, or nonfiction, or reviews) editor somewhere.
2. Keep it as short as possible. No one wants to read a 3,000-word persuasive essay on why you think your piece should be published in this magazine. You need to include what you're writing, why you think it would be a good fit for that specific magazine, and a bit about yourself. That is all. No more.
3. Be specific about why you think your piece works with that specific magazine. I've heard more than one editor say that it's best to mention a specific piece from the magazine that you read and liked. If you don't have time to find one, at least mention the general aesthetic of the magazine. Most publications have an About page somewhere on their websites. (A side note: don't submit somewhere just because of the prestige associated with a certain name. If you don't like their work, they probably won't like yours, and you will both have wasted your time).
4. Lead with what's most relevant in your bio. Obviously, having your work already published is wonderful. But, if you don't have seventy-five pieces published already, don't worry. If you have, or are working towards, a degree in creative writing, mention that. If you have interests relevant to the magazine and what you're submitting, mention them. If you have a blog or write for a website, mention that. Let the editor know who you are and why you're writing.
5. And speaking of leading, lead your pitch with what's going to attract an editor to your work. If that's you and your impressive credentials, great! But oftentimes, it's going to be what you're writing about.
6. Always important, but especially if you're pitching somewhere other than a literary magazine: follow submission guidelines. Most often, submission guidelines just tell you how to format your manuscript. But sometimes, certain publications will tell you to paste the text of your piece in an email, or only send a pitch first, or send a pitch and attach a Word document containing your piece. Follow these guidelines. To the letter.

But enough strictures from me. Here are a couple of sample pitch letters, so that you can get an idea of how all these recommendations go together (Another caveat: these are pitch letters the way I would write them. Your style might be entirely different).

For an essay, to a literary magazine:

Dear ____________,

I'm writing to see if you'd be interested in my essay on the art of the cover letter. Since the number of people who call themselves writers is growing, there are more and more cover letters flying around the internet today. I poke some fun at the subgenres of the cover letter–the manifesto, the plea, the cry for help and the submission blast. Given the snarkiness of pieces like _________, I think this piece would fit well in __________ Magazine.

I'm currently working towards my MFA in Nonfiction at Columbia College Chicago. I've published nonfiction in ________ Magazine, and have also written for BUST Magazine.

Warm regards,
Rukmini Girish

For criticism/interviews:

Dear ___________,

Jane Smith has been reading and writing cover letters for decades. In her new book, The Art of the Cover Letter, Smith shares the insight she has gained as the author of several published essays, and as an editor at ________, _________ and ___________. I think the aspiring writers who read ___________ Magazine would benefit from Smith's advice and knowledge of the publishing industry.

So, I'm writing to see if you'd be interested in publishing an interview I conducted with her in anticipation of the book's release next month. I'm working towards my MFA in Nonfiction at Columbia College Chicago. My nonfiction has appeared in _________ Magazine, and I recently published a Q&A in BUST Magazine.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Warm regards,
Rukmini Girish

Read more of Rukmini's work on Floodmark.

Just last week, Padraic published an excellent post on the problems and pitfalls of writing dialogue in fiction. All his advice is applicable to nonfiction as well, where some writers have a tendency to stop remembering what people said and start remembering what they think people should have said. And it's especially important for theatre, which is often predominantly about the dialogue (although there are, of course, some theatre movements/styles which pay more attention to movement and visuals).


But what about poetry? As I've talked about before, there is verse theatre, which is a kind of poetry. Shakespeare adhered to pretty strict rules while writing in iambic pentameter. The neoclassical French playwrights also had their own rules about writing in alexandrines. Otherwise, though, I don't know of a lot of dialogue in poetry (other than limericks).


So, I thought it would be fun to come up with a prompt to play a little more with found poetry, and help you flex your fictional, nonfictional and poetic muscles all at once. Here, then, is your assignment:

1. Go to a public place and eavesdrop. But don't just eavesdrop. Record (in your brain, on your phone, or in writing) a conversation (or several) that you overhear.*
2. Transcribe the conversation if you recorded it electronically or in your brain.
3. Shape it. You may want to print out your transcription and go at it with scissors. You may want to use the Cut and Paste functions in your word processor. You may want to rewrite or retype your transcription in different shapes. You may want to try all three or something else entirely.

This is an exercise in found poetry of a sort, but I hope that the act of transcription will help you see how natural dialogue really sounds. And, in turn, help with your own dialogue writing. I have trouble with this all the time. Even when I'm writing about a conversation that happened a few hours ago, I automatically cut and polish, remove the um's and uh's, the false starts, the "I think– I don't think that's really– You know, the thing is–" before an eloquent thought. And my dialogue often ends up sounding fake. But working closely with dialogue has helped me become more aware of what sounds natural and what doesn't. So go, eavesdrop, flex your poetical muscles and use this exercise to tone your fictional and nonfictional muscles too!


*Note: Recording without consent isn't the most ethical thing to do, so use your discretion. If you subscribe to the idea that, as a writer, you sometimes have to do unethical things for the sake of art (i.e. air people's private business in public), the sky's the limit. But, if you're uncomfortable with the very idea of recording, find some students discussing homework, or coworkers discussing recipes in the breakroom. Find a situation that likely won't involve sensitive information and record that. You'll still get just as much material.

Find more of Rukmini's excellent articles on Floodmark.