Every Writer Knows Everything About Grammar

That's not true. Here's where writers go to double check their grammar. Plus, a few thoughts about learning to read like a writer, reading widely, where to find books, and outsider writers.

I learned my grammar intuitively, by reading,

which is to say that I often doubted my chosen grammar and my writing often had grammatical mistakes. Even now, after having studied English as an undergraduate in my thirties, after having obtained my MFA in creative writing, I still sometimes doubt my chosen grammar.

When I was in my MFA program one of my mentors told me that I needed to become a grammar nerd. She was definitely a grammar nerd, and I admired it. Her deep knowledge of grammar allowed her to write and give feedback with precision (we’ll talk about the importance of precision on another day).

I, on the other hand, childishly rejected grammar. Because I didn’t understand it (and because I was sometimes rudely corrected, which is its own [classist and often racist] issue), I had decided I was subversive in my shirking of grammatical rules.

Until I learned that those who are truly subversive know the rules of what they’re subverting inside and out. How can one “undermine the po…