The Next Draft: Inspiring Craft Talks from the Rainier Writing Workshop brings together a selection of the “morning talks” delivered by the renowned authors who teach at the prestigious Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program. These morning talks are a highlight of the residencies at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, featuring inspiring, innovative approaches to writing and literature across genres. For this collection, Brenda Miller has selected essays that feature diverse and illustrious writers such as Geffrey Davis, Marjorie Sandor, Barrie Jean Borich, Jenny Johnson, Oliver de la Paz, Lia Purpura, Kent Myers, Rebecca McClanahan, and others. Ranging from reading and writing in the Jewish tradition of midrash to the role of the writer as cultural critic in the 21st century, The Next Draft brings to life the kind of intellectual and creative excitement that underlies the intensive MFA experience at Pacific Lutheran University. Not only do these talks show innovative approaches to writing and literature across genres, they inspire the reader to think about how to read differently and thus bring their own work to a new level. 

Brenda Miller’s most recent book is A Braided Heart: Essays on Writing and Form. She is the author of five more essay collections, including An Earlier Life, which received the Washington State Book Award for Memoir, and she is the recipient of six Pushcart Prizes. She is a Professor of Creative Writing at Western Washington University and Associate Faculty at the Rainier Writing Workshop.

“I am that kind of nerd for whom the best part of any creative writing program, conference, journal, etc., are the craft talks. Brenda Miller takes the model of the collected Warren Wilson craft lectures coedited by Voigt and Orr and applies it to 20 years of the cross- and inter-genre offerings of the Rainier Writing Workshop. Our community (especially creative nonfiction) has hungered for this, and the result is a celebratory feast.”— Heidi Czerwiec, author of Crafting the Lyric Essay: Strike a Chord and Fluid States