We want our first draft to be amazing. Sometimes, our first draft isn’t amazing. But rather than experience this as disheartening, we can turn to what musicians and athletes know in their bones: to accomplish our goal, there must be hundreds, even thousands of hours of practice. Whether it’s running laps, playing scales, or penciling a sketch before committing a vision to paint, our creative endeavors flourish through an appreciation for practice. Practice is a kind of blossoming, an acknowledgment of time as our partner. This talk will outline strategies for restoring practice as the center of your writing life.

Kevin Smith received an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a PhD in French from Princeton University. An Iowa Arts Fellow, he is the recipient of the Provost Postgraduate Visiting Fellowship in Fiction at the University of Iowa, the Steinbeck Fellowship at San José State University, and the Chateaubriand Fellowship. Writing prizes include the Power of Purpose Award and the Arch and Bruce Brown Award. He has held teaching positions at the University of Washington, The George Washington University, Université de Bordeaux III, and the University of Iowa.