Read aloud picture books and look for simile examples and metaphor examples to learn how writers use figurative language to make writing beautiful and convey meaning. Use these favorite mentor texts ...

Marble bust of Aristotle. Public domain. Metaphors are not user-friendly. They are hard to find and hard to use well. Unfortunately, metaphor is a mainstay of good lyric writing; indeed, of most ...

"Narcissus" by Caravaggio (c. 1598). Source: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain What is an allegory? An allegory (Greek, "a speaking about something else") is a complete and cohesive narrative, for ...

Metaphors fill our lives, and we often have no trouble recognizing their symbolic nature. We know that when captains shout, “All hands on deck,” they want more than their crews’ hands. Clear skies can ...

Metaphors are not just for poets - they're everywhere in our everyday language. And they shape the way we view the world.

Metaphors influence the way we think. In a paper in PLoS ONE published today, Paul Thibodeau and Lera Boroditsky, psychologists at Stanford University in California, show that people approve of ...