Grant Faulkner

As a boy, I spent my allowance on all sorts of pens and paper, so there was never much question I would become a writer. I thought writing would only lead me to tell stories on the page, but it has led me to so many adventures and opened up inspiring communities of writers. Our stories make us who we are. Our stories connect us to the world (and beyond). Our stories connect us to others. That's why I believe everyone must believe in their story and put it into the world.

I like big stories and I like small stories, so I feel very fortunate that storytelling has led me to be the Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)—the largest writing event in the world—and the co-founder of 100 Word Story (100wordstory.org), where tiny tales sometimes tell the largest of stories. 
 
I've written several books about writing because I like to think about the creative process and how our aesthetic allows us to explore life. I recently published The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story, and I've also published Brave the Page and Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo. 

I write fiction as well, of course. My most recent collection is All the Comfort Sin Can Provide, and then I have published Fissures, a collection of 100-word stories and Nothing Short Of: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story.

I've published stories in many literary magazines, including Tin House, The Southwest Review, and The Gettysburg Review, and I have been anthologized in collections such as Norton’s New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction, Flash Fiction America, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction.
 
My essays on creativity have been published in The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer. 

I'm also very active in the writing world with other organizations. I'm a member of the National Writing Project Writers Council and a member of the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Words’ Creative Council. I’ve presented at such shindigs as the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Associated Writing Programs Conference, Book Expo America, the Chicago Humanities Festival, the Oakland Book Festival, the Bay Area Book Festival, Poets & Writers Live, the San Francisco Writers Conference, the Commonwealth Club, the Digital Publishing Innovation Summit, Writers Digest West, the Porchlight storytelling series, Litquake, Lit Crawl, the Mendocino Writers Conference, CreativeLive, the Arizona State Library Association’s YA Summit, and the Sierra Writers Conference.

Please follow me online at @grantfaulkner on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Listen to my podcast Write-minded—and subscribe to my Substack newsletter, Intimations: A Writer's Discourse.