Studio Hours: "The Flickering is Yours"

Our first LIVE studio hour is happening tonight—join us!

Welcome to Slant Letter’s seasonal intensive! Become a paid subscriber to join our close reading of Maggie Smith’s You Could Make This Place Beautiful for an editor’s annotated insights on an extraordinary memoir that all writers can learn from. Here’s what we’ve covered so far and what’s next. Join us!

1. The Art of the Caveat

2 . Details that Tell, Details that Move

3. Writing about Writing: The Thrills and the Trade-offs

4. Metaphor: What Makes It Work

5. Wordplay (and Its Secret Talent!)

6. “Stetting the Tears”: Writing About Pain

7. The Flickering Is Yours: LIVE Zoom gathering tonight 7/9 8pm ET

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Tonight we’re concluding our close reading of Maggie Smith’s phenomenal You Could Make This Place Beautiful with Slant Letter’s very first live studio hours! Mark your calendar for 8pm ET and if you’d like to join us for this Zoom gathering, you can upgrade your subscription here:

The book’s opening epigraph is from Emily (Dickinson) herself: “I am out with the lanterns, looking for myself.” 

This epigraph frames the entire work: this is a story about searching in the dark, taking what little light we have, and throwing it against a path so we might find our footing, even find ourselves. 

What a fitting portrait of the writing process for all of us. 

In the final pages, Smith traces back to this opening to say: 

“What now? I am out with lanterns, looking for myself. But here’s the thing about carrying light with you: No matter where you go, and no matter what you find—or don’t find—you change the darkness just by entering it. You clear a path through it. 

This flicking? It’s mine. This path is mine.” 

Tonight, we’re gathering at 8pm ET for our first live studio hours to talk about the flickering that is uniquely yours. In this conclusion to our close reading of Smith’s wonderful book, we’ll cover: 

• The voice and vision that make your writing yours 

• How to discern and decide what personal writing to keep private and what to craft into a public offering

• What you loved, resonated with, and resisted in this inventive memoir

• Craft notes to keep and carry with you into your own creative process