Thousand Fibers

White whales and secret shame

2012-01-11T21:33:00.000-06:00

My friend Katie is worried she doesn't read enough books each year, but does the quantity matter if you're tackling the literary equivalent of Mt. Everest?

The Washington Post book critic is asking about readers' literary challenges. His are staggering accomplishments (Beowulf in Old English, anyone?). While I'm proud that I'm a dedicated reader, I don't feel obligated to tackle long, arduous works just to make a point. I need to enjoy the process, too.

When I think of books that I've struggled with, Faulkner comes to mind. In high school, I waded through The Sound and the Fury; I wonder if I attempted a re-read now, would it go any smoother?

There are books I've given up on -- Seeing, by Jose Saramago, is one. The long paragraph structure, the lack of character names, the endless sentences. The promise of a later payoff in the bookwas not worth my pain.

Do you have a white whale, a book you just couldn't get through? What's your shame? Or maybe you'd rather brag about the one that you conquered, owned, dominated and now brag about to your literary-type friends. So... which is it?

How to Write and What to Read

2012-01-02T19:40:00.002-06:00

While I was in Ireland, our rental house had a small library with travel guides, discarded paperback mysteries, and a few old gems. I was mightily tempted to steal a book called How to Write and What to Read (written by Richard Ferrar Pattersonand W. Kersley Holmes), but my husband shamed me into leaving it in the house. Still, I snapped some images of a few pages so I could consult some of the words later. Today, I share a tiny snippet contained in that book:

"We cannot all be Shakespeares; but we can all learn toexpress ourselves; for who knows what, in the course of our lives, we may becalled upon to express.

"Words and sentences are the writer’s tools, and as most ofus have to be writers at some time or another, if only writers of notes to ourfriends, or applications for posts, we must learn how to make those tools serveour purpose."

Did you read...

2012-01-01T12:24:00.001-06:00

A reader's wishlist

2011-12-04T12:16:00.000-06:00

It Chooses You
by Miranda July
We've already talked about this book, but a friend told me she finished this in a day.

The Marriage Plot
by Jeffrey Eugenides
This was the book club selection last month at work, but I'm always in the middle of some other book when they have their meetings. No matter -- now I have several recommendations from co-workers that this is a good read.

Food Rules
by Michael Pollan and Maira Kalman
I've already told the Hubbs that I want this book, because hello? Food writing + illustrations by Maira Kalman. Yes.

Lucky Peach
The first issue on ramen had recipes, travel stories about hitting up noodle shops in Japan, and a panel of chefs ranting about the modern food scene. If you love No Reservations, you want a subscription to this magazine. NOTE: This is a food magazine for readers and adventurers, not for people who want 30-minute-meal ideas. (Not that there's anything wrong with a 30-minute-meal recipe -- I use variations on them all the time -- but don't look for it here.)

Remedy Quarterly
I've never seen this magazine in person, but based on the gorgeous design and the website, I want it. For example, there's a recipe for a "red, white and yellow bowl" that cures hangovers. You just top steamed rice with two eggs, some sriracha and scallions. Doesn't that sound easy and tasty?

The Gentlewoman
Not only do I want to read this magazine, I want to become the effortlessly cool, chic, creative women that are featured within its pages. British, printed on thick paper, with beautiful black-and-white photography.

PS - Also, everything on the New York Times "best books" list.

Confessions from an Anxious Mind: A NaNoWriMo Writer's Story - Final Day

2011-11-30T14:50:00.004-06:00

I'm currently sitting just shy of 20,000 words; 33,000 away from a blue ribbon finish, but 12,000 words farther than I made it last year. I'm going to make a concerted effort to pump up the volume of words in the remaining 8 hours.

However, I still have two items to take away regardless of how many words I finish with: 1) the group behind NaNoWriMo, the Office of Light and Letters, does fantastic things throughout the year to help writers and champion the future successors of the written word with their Young Writer's Program (which, incidentally, contributed a Dare Machine to NaNoWriMo that led me to construct one of my favorite passages of my story). 2) I have a lot of groundwork laid for a story and characters I'm supremely interested in continue to work through. I'm going to spend some time after I send in my final manuscript for word tally really breaking out a working outline to give more structure and guidance to this project.

Confessions from an Anxious Mind: A NaNoWriMo Writer's Story - Week 3

2011-11-22T11:45:00.003-06:00

How to go about adjusting expectations? I wasn't as able as I expected to freeze my life; in fact, my commitment recently increased, so setting aside space to write has been a Tetrisian time-management challenge. I've spent much of the last week falling asleep with my fingers dangling over the keyboard, waking up with streams of nonsense garble all over my computer screen. I've decided to play fair and delete those unconscious sentences, even if they contribute to my overall word counts, and am currently sitting just above 15,000 words.

So, the expectation-setting. 50,000 words, the ultimate goal and what would launch me into the upper pantheon of WriMos is more daunting than anticipated and trying to accomplish that will just produce more negatively impacting anxiety. I've pulled back to striving for 30,000 words, a more reasonable endgame with just eight days to go, and more exciting a trial for the upcoming holiday weekend.

My story has begun to take shape, too. It's flattening out into chapters and sections, the characters have purpose and conflict, and the vignettes tying the central plot together seem relevant and interesting to the themes of family, upbringing and identity I'm exploring with this novel. So bring on Turkey Day and I'll stuff myself full of words and motivation to push forward to my (revised) goal.

Heat from the King

2011-11-16T18:00:00.000-06:00

Stephen King--who gets pegged too narrowly as a "horror" writer--is chipping in to help his fellow Maine residents (Mainers? Mainiacs?) with their heating bills this winter. Salon says: Three cheers for an example of philanthropy in this economy. And I say: Isn't it nice to hear about a writer who is not only wildly successful but also thoughtful with his generosity?

Don't quit your day job

2011-11-09T21:58:00.000-06:00

Writer's Digest has a funny round-up of "The Oddest Odd Jobs of 10 Literary Greats." The you'd-never-guess-it prize goes to JD Salinger, who was a cruise ship entertainment director.

Writers love to grumble about how it'd be so nice to "just write" for a living, instead of working as a (bartender, coffee barista, corporate shill, teacher, fill-in-the-blank). Even for those lucky enough to write and edit in their daytime work, the writing is often less-than-glamorous items like crime briefs, press releases, corporate memos or newsletters. No matter how much you want to sex it up, a newsletter is a newsletter is a newsletter.

But I say, take pride in that day-job! It may lead to your next great short story, or if nothing else, a better understanding of how the common man (or woman) lives. These experiences and observations fill our stories with quirky details and rich character.

Photo of JD Salinger from Wikipedia, credited to Lotte Jacobi.

The poem stuck in my head

2011-11-06T16:53:00.000-06:00

The Paris Review has a new series, called "The Poem Stuck in My Head." In each column, the writer explains a poem that they can't stop thinking about.

Today, the poem stuck in my head is actually song lyrics, after reading this article about Courtney Love.

I want to be the girl with the most cake
He only loves those things because he loves to see me break
I fake it so real, I was beyond fake.

Confessions from an Anxious Mind: A NaNoWriMo Writer's Story - Week 1

2011-11-04T15:41:00.008-05:00

I had a plan. I was going to start at 11pm on October 31st: harvest some plot ideas, plant some seeds of character and reap some stalks of subject matter so that I could chow down on the fruits of prose come midnight. But even the best laid plans–and this was not one of them–can go awry, and so it ended up being 12:30am on November 1st when I launched full-force into my National Novel Writing Month endeavor. Which is actually more true to the spirit of NaNoWriMo, working in the moment and removing the bonds of self-censorship.

In that first sprint, I employed nearly 400 words, inventing less than 1% of them. After 3 days, I am now perched at 3,200 of the eventual 50,000 I hope to acquire. Currently, I don't have any significant plot developments, no real "story" to speak of–it's mainly character sketches and small moments, which is suitable coming from a short story background and having consumed that medium as a reader for the past few weeks. But that is the appeal of NaNo: freedom to write the way you want with the impetus to write more of it. I'm braving the impending storm of brain fatigue and laptop eyestrain, and I look forward to sharing more of the ongoing madness.

Kickstarting a publishing career?

2011-11-03T17:30:00.000-05:00

Here's another alternative to the whole -find-and-agent-editor-publisher-game: Use Kickstarter to finance your writing.

PBS has the story about author Tim Pratt, whose book series was left hanging when his editor got laid off from his publishing house. He turned to a few different strategies -- like serializing the book, getting donations on kickstarter, and self-publishing the (digital) book on Amazon.

Sometimes I think we're in this new digital-Wild-West of publishing, a sort of pioneer world where you get to make your own path. Yes, it's harder and harder to squeak into the Big Publishing Houses, but there are thousands of people out there making a living by blogging, self-publishing, and finding readers through their own verve. It makes me want to saddle my horse and hope that I don't end up with cholera.

Just Kids

2011-11-01T13:04:00.010-05:00

Jonathan Franzen with David Foster Wallace at the book launch for Infinite Jest.

Did you know that Jeffrey Eugenides and Rick Moody lived together in San Fran in the '80s?

OK OK, but did you know that Mary Karr and David Foster Wallace had a "stormy" relationship in the '90s?

Or that Jonathan Franzen spent his late 20s desperate for friends?

I learned all of this just by reading the first page of a New York Magazine story on what might be today's hottest literary cohort. And then I learned how it all ties into their work, whether they intend it to or not. There's love, betrayal, deceit, murder. Everything you also find at the average Thousand Fibers meeting.

Don't believe me? Read for yourself.
--KSB

Thirty days and nights of literary abandon

2011-10-31T20:21:00.002-05:00

It's time for the annual wrote-your-heart-out extravaganza known as NaNoWriMo, a.k.a. National Novel Writing Month.
This is the first year I'm taking the plunge. 1600 words a day x 30 days = 50,000 words.
I am planning to bend the rules to suit me a little more. Bending as in, it doesn't have to be words towards the same novel. My goal is to just carve out time every single day this month for writing, specifically for a few different projects I've got cooking.
Join me, won't you?

Slashy*

2011-10-31T12:00:00.005-05:00

Actress/director/writer Miranda July has a new book coming out, called It Chooses You. McSweeney's has the details, but in short: July sought people that posted ads in the all-classified publication the PennySaver, interviewed the prospective sellers, and got photos (taken by Brigitte Sire). The New Yorker has excerpts.

(She also has a new-ish movie out, called The Future. You can watch a short film and read an interview about the movie here.)

Photo above is from Miranda July's magical website.

*Slashy indicates that she's a multi-talented person for whom I have to use a bunch of these: word/SLASH/word/SLASH/word.

Back from the dead!

2011-10-28T11:53:00.002-05:00

Let's get this started again.

Today's reading: A lively profile of cartoonist/writer/creative-workshop-teacher Lynda Barry.

One tiny scene:

“That’s perfect!” Barry shouted. “Perfect! I mean good, good! I had to remember I can only say good. Good good good good good.”

At the end of class, Barry put her hands on her hips. “Well, you little bad asses. How about that?”

Her book, What It Is, is on my wishlist. I'm going to start referring to people I like as "you little bad asses."

Listen up, cyboys and cybergirls

2010-08-20T11:53:00.000-05:00

McSweeney's Internet Tendency is looking for columnists. Didn't you always want to share your thoughts with the world?

Readers! Writers! Books Galore!

2010-06-11T10:22:00.002-05:00

This weekend is the Printers Row Lit Fest (formerly "Book Fair"). If you like books and words and writers and readers, it's a good time. Full schedule and details are here. Will I see you there?

And, with impeccable timing, New City released its "Lit 50" list, which is a list of "who really books in Chicago." You can read the full list here. Two thoughts:
1. It seems man-heavy (the top 10 listed are all men).
2. I need to read more Chicago authors.

Story time

2010-06-09T10:05:00.003-05:00

Gaper's Block has a great roundup of Chicago's storytelling scene. I gotta get in on some of that action!

The full story is here.

"You write funny one day."

2010-03-17T11:21:00.001-05:00

StoryStudio Chicago is offering tickets to see David Sedaris as the prize for a humor essay contest.
Details here.

Just a story about a man and his dog...

2010-03-16T13:02:00.002-05:00

The lit mag Creative Nonfiction is "seeking new essays about the bonds--emotional, ethical, biological, physical, or otherwise--between humans and animals." Top prize is ONE MILLION DOLLARS. Wait, no, sorry -- one thousand. One thousand dollars. That could buy a lot of milkbones.

Details here along with submission guidelines and other contests.

Buy this book.

2010-02-23T23:45:00.005-06:00

Two and a half years ago, we posted a classified ad on Craigslist in the hopes that we could find a few people willing to join, as Katie says, "a lil' creative writing group." And guess what? Out of all the misfits and vagrants and criminals that attended our meetings, one became a real, live, published author. His name is Stephen Markley. And I present to you Publish This Book, out in stores and available online March 9.

As someone who read this thing in its pre-agent infancy, I can tell you it's funny and offensive and full of vulgarity. So what I'm saying is, you should probably read it.

Without further ado, the back cover copy:
Dear Reader-
This is called the "back cover copy," and you are no doubt familiar with its purpose. It describes what the book is about, so you can decide if you want to read it.
Here's the problem, though: I can't even describe this book, and I wrote the damn thing.(1)
Basically, it's like this: fed up with the Byzantine quest of trying to publish a novel, I decide instead to cut to the chase and write a memoir about trying to publish a book-this book, to be precise.
Of course, now you're saying to yourself, "That is stupid," which is fair. But then you'll read it, and you'll say, "Damn, that was actually pretty good."
Because obviously it's about much more than just publishing a book. It's about life and love and friendship; politics, pop culture, and basketball; sex, drugs, and mild, inoffensive, slow-tempo Christian rock.(2)
It's about the pitfalls of narrating your life as it unfolds, freaking out when an agent actually (spoiler alert!) takes an interest in this bizarre experiment, and the surreal shock you undergo when a publisher actually buys it(3) and you suddenly realize that every secret drunk, drug, and sex story you've related will now be required reading for your parents, aunts, ex-girlfriends, and thousands of strangers who-you were kind of hoping-would never find out that you once accidentally shut your penis in a dresser drawer.(4)
And finally, but most importantly, it's about those tumultuous early years of adulthood-the years when hope and fear and rage broil together and the promise of youth still holds the capacity to inspire awe. This is a story of those struggles-to find your true voice in your work and in your life. And the best part?
You pretty much know it has a happy ending.(5)
1 What's beside it on the shelf? Something with a sexy vampire? If you're looking for sexy, I do full-frontal nudity in Chapter 11.
2 It is not really about that last one.
3 And then later makes you write your own back cover copy even though you clearly do not know what you're doing.
4 Although I'll dodge a bullet there because I totally left that story out of the book.
5 Except for what happens to the puppy at the fertilizer plant. I admit, that part is kind of a downer.

PS -- Because this lil' writing group read the book as it was being written, we make token appearances in print! Exciting, no?

Video killed the radio star. But NPR may liven up your fiction.

2010-02-14T18:44:00.002-06:00

Cool short-fiction contest on NPR. 600 words inspired by the photo they've chosen. Details here.

You should read this.

2010-01-20T09:26:00.001-06:00

Oooh, look, a new issue of Brevity, the online lit mag for short creative nonfiction.

"If you want to be a great writer, be a man."

2010-01-11T13:12:00.002-06:00

I'm a sucker for op-eds that tackle gender issues and writing.

Like this one from Julianna Baggott in the Washington Post, in which she talks about the ways we idolize male writers (yes, even in today's equal-rights world) and leave the women in a pile of chick lit and romance novels.

To quote: "In my grad school thesis, written at 23, you'll find young men coming of age, old men haunted by war, Oedipus complexes galore. If I'd learned nothing else, it was this: If you want to be a great writer, be a man. If you can't be a man, write like one.

No one told me this outright. But I was told to worship Chekhov, Cheever, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Carver, Marquez, O'Brien. . . . This was the dawn of political correctness. Women were listed as concessions. In the middle of my master's, a female writer took center stage with a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award -- E. Annie Proulx. Ah, there was a catch. She was writing about men and therefore like a man."

Salon's Broadsheet column has more on this.

You could submit something:

2009-10-12T11:51:00.001-05:00

To the Chicago Reader, for the annual fiction issue.
Details here.

You could write about this:

2009-10-12T11:49:00.001-05:00

Details on Slate here.

Girls Gone Wilder

2009-08-04T09:51:00.002-05:00

OK, there's a part of me that waxes nostalgic about reading Laura Ingalls Wilder because I share her last name. But the other part really loved reading those books when I was a kid. So it was with intrigue and fondness that I read this piece in Salon about Rose Wilder Lane and her life. The Wilder women also are the subjects of an Aug. 10 New Yorker piece.

From the Salon piece (quoting author Wendy McClure here): "For some reason Rose went out of her way to promote the idea of her mother as the sweet little lady pouring out her life in notebooks. She did it at her expense, and maybe ours, too, because I really wish that as a kid I'd gotten to hear more about Rose's writing life. For God's sake, the woman spent a whole winter in an unheated Greenwich Village flat typing and sleeping under newspapers, and somehow that's not as cool as twisting hay?"

Poetry from normal, banal life

2009-08-04T09:28:00.002-05:00

Robert Pinsky writes about Alexander Pope and finding poetry in the mundane on Slate, here.

"All I have is intense curiosity."

2009-07-29T11:37:00.002-05:00

I am eating up this Paris Review interview with Gay Talese. He works in a bunker (former wine cellar) in his house and writes longhand before typing on a typewriter before transferring his later draft to computer. He takes notes on cardboard shirtboards, like you might find at a drycleaners. Oh, and he's been hailed for writing one of the greatest magazine stories ever.

Mmm, delicious books

2009-07-23T13:11:00.001-05:00

Newberry Library Book Fair this weekend. Any takers?

Are you a literary lightweight?

2009-07-06T10:44:00.002-05:00

Take this quiz from the BBC magazine to test your literary knowledge. It's a random sample from the General Certificate of Secondary Education, which is taken by 15- and 16-year-olds in the UK. I did... much worse than I would have liked.

In which I suggest things you read online:

2009-06-30T10:06:00.002-05:00

Useful:
Brevity's "Craft Essays"
in which we read short essays on the craft of nonfiction writing

Enlightening:
Papercuts Blog "Living with Music" Series
in which authors discuss their current playlists, often made of eclectic choices

Moving:
Pacing the Panic Room Blog
in which a dad-to-be (now a new dad) writes "candidly and vividly about the building of (his) family"

Screamin' seafaring tale wins bad writing contest

2009-06-30T09:53:00.002-05:00

Thanks to the Washington Post and the AP, which keep me up to date on each year's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

This year's winner:
Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.

Printers Row Lit Fest this weekend!

2009-06-01T23:42:00.002-05:00

From the Trib:

Join the Chicago Tribune for the Midwest's largest literary event! This outdoor festival offers the opportunity to hear authors speak and debate their works. It also features unique booksellers, poetry readings, exhibitors, kids activities, cooking demos, wine tastings, and much more.
Hours are from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on June 6-7.

My top picks (I wish that I could get to these, but I'm not sure if it'll happen): Neil Gaiman and Elmore Leonard. Columnist Leonard Pitts is in a panel discussion, which could be good. And Amy Dickinson (of the Ask Amy column) will be chatting about her book. And music critic Greg Kot is on the schedule too. Oh, also: Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle will be talking about graphic novels.

Schedule, map and more here.

A writer's cure for writer's block

2009-05-20T20:53:00.001-05:00

There's a little thing I do when I can't write: When I'm feeling sleepy, when my head is in a fog, I reach across my desk, digging under the piles of unanswered mail, to unearth my copy of Herzog by Saul Bellow. And then I open the book — anywhere— and read a paragraph.

From Jeffrey Eugenides on NPR

hey, so anyway...

2009-05-18T20:51:00.000-05:00

this is going on this week:
pilcrow lit fest (the calendar!)

Justifying the life of fiction writers...

2009-05-18T19:11:00.002-05:00

From novels to storytelling to television, fiction has a place in everyone's lives. For those of us who read and write for pleasure, we argue that we are educated, entertained and connected through works of fiction. But "The Evolutionary Argument for Dr. Seuss" on Salon highlights how important fiction is.

From the article: The latest and most intriguing effort to understand fiction is often called Darwinian literary criticism, although Brian Boyd, an English professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and the author of "On the Origin of Stories," a new book offering an overview and defense of the field, prefers the term "evocriticism."

I have a hard time tying evolutionary biology into enjoyment of fiction. But part of me loves the idea that there's a scientific way to prove that writing, reading, watching tv, enjoying movies, etc. is good for us as individuals, good for society and good for the human race. It's a nice thought.

Oprah's apology

2009-05-15T20:47:00.001-05:00

Does James Frey deserve an apology? If Oprah says so, it must be true.

(e)Book review

2009-05-15T20:27:00.003-05:00

I keep asking about that damn Kindle, and somebody over at NewPages went and did a nice little review. Yes, I've read some of the other reviews, but I felt like this one was a good representation from a true reader's standpoint (not just a recap of its features and flaws).

Need some feedback on...

2009-05-06T21:36:00.001-05:00

Summer plans? MFA programs? Online workshops? There are lots of good discussions about all these topics over at the Creative Writing MFA Handbook Blog.

Ditch work, come home early

2009-05-06T21:30:00.001-05:00

... That's the title of this poem on Juked. It does make me want to go home early, bake bread and, well, go read it yourself.

Thief! Thief!

2009-04-16T19:08:00.003-05:00

I'm a bit late to this piece written in 2007, but my brother just tipped me off to a great article in Harper's: The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism. A great meditation on the ways that plagiarism is pervasive in creative works (music, poetry, literature).

And if you're intrigued by the intro--in which we learn that the original story Lolita was written in 1918, and not by Nabokov--I've found a translation online here.

Miscellany.

2009-04-08T16:59:00.002-05:00

Relatively new blog I like: Schott's Vocab: A Miscellany of Modern Words and Phrases.

I <3 short stories

2009-04-07T18:59:00.002-05:00

Now I know that I'm not the only one in America who likes to read short stories. It turns out AO Scott (film critic at the New York Times) is pulling for a return to the form. See: In Praise of the American Short Story. To me, there are few things more satisfying to read than a bit of Flannery O'Connor, Roald Dahl or some short Hemingway. They show just how powerful a few pages can be.

Some of my faves:

A Good Man Is Hard To Find (O'Connor)

Royal Jelly (Dahl)

Hills Like White Elephants (Hemingway)

BONUS PICKS:

Big Blonde (Dorothy Parker)

Welcome to the Monkeyhouse (Kurt Vonnegut)

I'm taking recommendations, if you want to drop anything in the comments.

New word: GIPE

2009-03-25T13:02:00.002-05:00

OK, it's an acronym, but it sounds good aloud, too. It stands for Good Idea, Poorly Executed, and Monica Khemsurov explains it in the New York Times T Magazine. Though she's using it to talk about design things (fashion, home decor, etc) I can see an immediate application to writing and editing. I think I may frequently struggle with stories that are GIPEs--the idea is fantastic, but the writing is just ok. Gipe Gipe Gipe. Gotta work on that "e" part in my writing, I guess.

Read.

2009-03-15T17:16:00.002-05:00

Some things to read.

Poetry

Spring Evening Poem from Juked.

Fiction

Fortune-Cookie Messages Appropriate for Dickens Characters from McSweeney's.

Nonfiction

The Bluest Eye from Brevity.

Experiments in literary magazine editing

2009-02-25T15:00:00.005-06:00

Creative Nonfiction, the premier literary magazine for creative nonfiction (ahem, obviously), has an interesting experiment in their new issue. Instead of starting with the lede (i.e. first paragraphs) that each author composed, they lopped off the beginning few bits. They are unveiling the "real ledes" and the author's comments on their Web site here. Only one is posted now, but I'm looking forward to buying the mag and checking back on the site.

The whole idea is interesting though -- could you lop off the beginning couple paragraphs off a story (or the beginning lines of a poem)? How would that change the work? And if an editor screwed around with your story that much, would you be irked? Or just glad that you were getting published?

Grammar police on patrol

2009-02-24T13:07:00.002-06:00

Looks like the grammar police are no happier with our current president (see: "a very personal decision for Michelle and I") than they were with the previous president (see: "nu-cu-lar"). The New York Times has a story on the grammatical anticipation for the State of the Union, headlined The I’s Have It.

Since his election, the president has been roundly criticized by bloggers for using “I” instead of “me” in phrases like “a very personal decision for Michelle and I” or “the main disagreement with John and I” or “graciously invited Michelle and I.”

The rule here, according to conventional wisdom, is that we use “I” as a subject and “me” as an object, whether the pronoun appears by itself or in a twosome. Thus every “I” in those quotes ought to be a “me.”

Quote for the day

2009-02-22T14:58:00.003-06:00

"I've always liked the uniform of the poet. I've gone through some nice pajamas."

- U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan, on working in bed (excerpted from a good, long interview in the Winter 2008 Paris Review)

Exercise... for your mind.

2009-02-15T21:10:00.002-06:00

Make it a habit to write a letter at least once a week. This can be a letter you send or one you keep for yourself alone. Your correspondent can remain the same, or you can switch it up from week to week. Your correspondent can be human or animal or spirit. Take a few moments to stop and breathe before beginning. Write each letter for at least a half hour, communicating whatever is most “present” for you at the time. Save these letters and see what you might be able to mine for other writing.

From Brevity, in an essay on creative writing craft by Brenda Miller.

Things My Beard Can Lift

2009-02-15T21:03:00.003-06:00

Ok, you got me, I don't have a beard. But this guy does, and he's lifting stuff, heavy stuff, for charity. You definitely need to check it out.

Also, I realize this doesn't really have anything to do with writing, publishing, news, reading or other common topics. But shouldn't we share things that we think are great?

TONIGHT

2009-02-11T09:48:00.002-06:00

LITERARY DEATH MATCH at the Hideout. Check it.

In concert with the AWP Conference, LDM Chicago, Ep. 1 (the 24th LDM ever) will bring together six readers from six of today’s finest literary journals and concerns (reading for five minutes or less), in what will be a literary celebration for the midwestern ages.

Redheaded stepchildren

2009-02-09T19:26:00.002-06:00

Tired of all those rejection letters for your submissions? Maybe you should turn to Redheaded Stepchild, a literary magazine that specifically calls for pieces that have already been rejected.

Details are here.

Kanye's a'musin...

2009-02-09T14:42:00.003-06:00

so apparently mr. west has made his literary debut....

Grammar stuff!

2009-02-08T00:34:00.005-06:00

Oh, how much do I want some grammar plates?! Some people might find that sad, but it's so true. Will everyone please visit www.grammarstuff.com and buy (me) something?

(Thanks to the NewPages blog for linking to this. That proves that I'm not the only who thinks this stuff is fantastic.)

Kindling

2009-02-07T19:25:00.006-06:00

With the news of a new version of the Kindle from Amazon, I'm wondering (again) whether this is really the future of reading. Can someone please weigh in? Leaked photos are here. The Sony one, with a touch screen, looks kind of cool.

Shall we start using our books to stay warm (y'know, since the economy is crap and our heating bills are so expensive)?

UPDATE: Just to be fair, how about somebody showing some love for the Sony Reader?

Good quote:

2009-02-07T19:14:00.001-06:00

"I have the feeling that my books get written through me and that once they have got across me I feel empty and nothing is left."

- Claude Levi-Strauss

my first post: 15 mins of slight confusion before i deleted accidentally and had to re-create

2009-02-06T13:30:00.005-06:00

This is happening in Chicago next week. Suzanne and I are probably going. You should too, but only if you can find your old school ID and/or have plenty of spare change.

*image has nothing to do with post. it is just nice to share and was created by tema stauffer.

New issue of Brevity.

2009-01-22T19:45:00.001-06:00

Nothing like a little short, snappy nonfiction to brighten my day.

Read it here.

Praise. song. for. inaugural. poetry.

2009-01-21T22:56:00.003-06:00

Did anyone else notice how incredibly slowly Elizabeth Alexander read her poem? It was like she was teaching kids how to read.

Anyway, the full transcript of the inaugural poem is at the New York Times, and the Poetry Foundation is all buzzbuzzbuzz with comments.

Call me sentimental, but I liked these lines at the end:

What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

Good news, good poem, good blog

2009-01-12T23:25:00.004-06:00

Good news for writers and publishing: More people are reading!

F iction reading increases for adults in the New York Times

My favorite poem in the latest issue of poetry was "The First Line is the Deepest," by Kim Addonizio. The trick is to find all the references to other poems/poets all over the piece. (The poet also reads the poem on the Poetry Web site.) The link to read the poem is here. She reads aloud on the podcast here.

From the world of blogs, not new but always good: The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. Artwork above is courtesy of said "blog."

It's all about focus

2009-01-12T15:34:00.001-06:00

http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2009/01/cory-doctorow-writing-in-age-of.html

The single worst piece of writing advice I ever got was to stay away from the Internet because it would only waste my time and wouldn't help my writing.

Round-up of good stuff

2009-01-09T10:20:00.002-06:00

A writer and reader on why publishers fail from Forbes

They dumb everything down.
Why is publishing the only industry so arcanely enigmatic that no one, not even the people doing it, seems to understand its sublimely mystical machineries? Many media watchers are linking the latest horrors in publishing to the financial crisis, but it's not quite as simple as that, either.

The the impotence of proofreading, from the Stranger

Yes, proofreading your peppers is a matter of the the utmost impotence. Now, this is a problem that affects manly, manly students all over the word.

Calls for funny poetry by women, posted on the New Pages blog

For shits... and giggles

2009-01-05T21:56:00.003-06:00

Did I tell you there's an online (print??) lit mag called the Shit Creek Review? For reals. It's legit, too, and I've started thinking that it'd be great to have that on your list of publications: "James Jameson's work has appeared in Poetry, the Chicago Review, The New Yorker and Shit Creek Review..."
Check it out here.

The End of Cushy Schmooze Fests

2009-01-05T21:44:00.003-06:00

The New York Times says the publishing industry is reconsidering the luxurious, book-related soirees of old. Mr. Moneybags (see above) will be so sad to hear it. It's doubly sad for me, because I've always wanted to hang out at schmooze fests, and now who knows when I'll have the chance? Staff cuts, corporate restructuring, cutbacks on perks--looks like publishing is going the way of ... pretty much every other industry right now.

Read it: Puttin' Off the Ritz: The New Austerity in Publishing.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T09:53:00.002-06:00

Now go write. Wasn't that one of your resolutions, to write more? Edit more? Submit more? Get published more?

Go. do. make. write.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Salinger!

2009-01-01T00:01:00.001-06:00

JD Salinger turns 90 today, so I hear. But he's still locked up in New Hampshire, hiding from the public, adoring fans and life in general.

What do you think he does all day? I'm betting he's got satellite TV and tivo and watches non-stop soap operas. Or maybe he has a terrible online poker habit. That's the thing about being a recluse--we can speculate and make up lots of ridiculous stories, and there's no way to validate them. Or invalidate them.

Read more about the elusive author in Still Paging Mr. Salinger, from the New York Times.

And another thing...

2008-12-31T19:25:00.002-06:00

Remember that Web site Stuff White People Like? Or that other Web site, the Angry Journalist? If they got together and made a baby, it'd be Stuff Journalists Like.

You can learn that journalists like things such as reporter's notebooks (#15), writing standing up (#84), free food (#30) and procrastinating (#63).

Oh, hey!

2008-12-31T19:19:00.001-06:00

The Chicago Reader's annual fiction issue came out here.

The stuff of common jokes

2008-12-22T21:37:00.002-06:00

Woman: What do you do?

Man: Me? Oh, I write books.

Woman: How interesting! Have you sold anything recently?

Man: Why, yes. My couch, my car and my flat-screen television.

A snarkier writer-father might have added, “and I sold those things to pay for your private school tuition!” But instead it got me thinking that there was a real problem here. Not just a small problem involving issues of respect between one writer and one teenager, but rather a national problem of respect where being a writer has become so widely associated with being a loser that we have become the stuff of common jokes.

Ah, I think anyone in my writing group relates to this idea. And all my journalist-newspaper-writing friends feel some empathy here too.

From Bail out the writers! in the New York Times.

Read it and weep

2008-12-22T20:36:00.002-06:00

The end of days is here for the publishing industry -- or it sure seems like it. On Dec. 3, now known as "Black Wednesday," several major American publishers were dramatically downsized, leaving many celebrated editors and their colleagues jobless. The bad news stretches from the unemployment line to bookstores to literature itself.
Read it here on Salon.

How To Write Your Memoir

2008-12-19T12:36:00.001-06:00

From Reader's Digest:
You don't need to have had a hardscrabble youth in order to write a memoir. You don't need eccentric parents. Believe it or not, you don't need anything dramatic. And you certainly don't have to publish it.

Read the full story here.

More best-of lists

2008-12-19T12:30:00.002-06:00

This guy totally schooled me in how to collect best-of lists.
Largehearted boy, a music blog, has gathered up dozens and dozens of these things here.
The list is even subdivided by category -- audiobooks, comics and graphic novels, science, teens, und so weiter.

It's truly an impressive roundup.

Turning political scandal into literary gold

2008-12-13T20:02:00.003-06:00

OK, I don't know if it's literary gold, but Salon's imagination of the Blago scandal is entertaining. Combine FBI-recorded conversations with some David Mamet and you get Glengarry Rod Blagojevich:

ROD BLAGOJEVICH, AKA BLAGO, the governor of Illinois, is at his tacky Ravenswood home, on the phone. His wife is sprawled on the couch behind him, petting a fur coat made entirely of hundreds of white kittens. Blago waves a copy of the Chicago Tribune as he speaks.

Read the whole thing on Salon here.

Writer=artist?

2008-12-13T19:56:00.000-06:00

Artists at Work Forum: How to Turn Your Art Into a Career
Join local artists (photographer Dawoud Bey, public artist Juan Angel Chavez, painter and professor Joyce Owens, and artist, poet, and actor Tony Fitzpatrick) as they share their secrets to success and missteps on the way to becoming successful artists. FREE at the Chicago Cultural Center (78 E Washington St). 6-7:30pm. 312-744-6630.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Stupendously ultimate first paragraph

2008-12-08T19:23:00.003-06:00

Have you written a stupendously awesome first paragraph to a work in progress? If so, maybe think about entering lit agent Nathan Bransford's blog contest. The winner will get "their choice of a partial critique, query critique or 15 minute phone conversation in which we can discuss topics ranging from reality TV shows to, you know, publishing. Your choice. Runners up will receive query critiques and/or other agreed-upon prizes."

Details on Bransford's blog here.

Monkeying around

2008-12-08T19:09:00.002-06:00

Imagine a nursing home attendant escorting a very hirsute, very old George Burns into the solarium, and you're halfway to picturing the scene. The sinewy, solemn, 4-foot-tall Cheeta, somewhat grizzled and a bit threadbare, stared straight ahead. It wasn't easy reconciling this character with the lovable scamp who had made a career out of getting Tarzan out of serious trouble.

Just a little monkey business for good reading. From Lie of the Jungle: The Truth about Cheeta the Chimpanzee in the Washington Post.

Ayatollahs of books...

2008-12-08T19:03:00.001-06:00

The last straw came when the group picked “The Da Vinci Code” and someone suggested the discussion would be enriched by delving into the author’s source material. “It was bad enough that they wanted to read ‘Da Vinci Code’ in the first place,” Ms. Bowie said, “but then they wanted to talk about it.” She quit shortly after, making up a polite excuse: “I told the organizer, ‘You’re reading fiction, and I’m reading history right now.’ ”

From "Fought Over Any Good Books Lately?" in the New York Times.

The good news about being rejected?

2008-12-06T10:38:00.002-06:00

All it takes is one rejection letter to make you an instant life member of a club whose luminaries include Walt Whitman, J.K. Rowling and Dr. Seuss.

From 10 Hidden Gifts of Rejection Letters in the Guide to Literary Agents.

Overwhelmed by all the book options in year-end round-ups?

2008-12-04T00:04:00.002-06:00

Maybe looking at a top 10 list (instead of top 100, top 50, top by a million different categories) is more manageable? If so, we can turn again to the New York Times. The best part of this list? Almost all of them have excerpts or the full first chapter posted with summary.

Five fiction and five nonfiction choices are listed. But you don't have to take my word for it! I haven't read ANY (the shame, the shame!) so I can offer no verdicts on their recommendations.

6900...

2008-12-03T18:56:00.002-06:00

....languages spoken in the world.

Who, outside the linguistics profession, knew that one thing Chinese and Icelandic have in common is that they both resist borrowing words from other languages?

For language lovers, the NY Times Papercuts blogs suggests “One Thousand Languages: Living, Endangered, and Lost.”
Details at Papercuts here and at the University of California Press here.

Are we human or are we dancer?

2008-12-02T22:23:00.005-06:00

I just needed something to take my mind away from words. And dancing is not words.

Where they write.

2008-12-01T23:20:00.003-06:00

Writers' Rooms: A slideshow from the BBC.

See: typewriters, laptops, books books books, piles, minimalism, maximalism, red, white, orthopedic chairs, track lighting.

Your life, in 500 words

2008-12-01T19:39:00.001-06:00

Opium magazine is hosting a contest for 500-word memoirs. Think you've got a winning life and winning words?
Details are here. Deadline is February 2009.

Best books round-up

2008-12-01T19:28:00.003-06:00

The best nonfiction from the Christian Science Monitor here.

100 notable books from the New York Times here.

Best books from NPR here.

BONUS: Bad Sex in Fiction Awards from the Literary Review. An excerpt from an "honorable" mention:

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (Sceptre)
If Dawn Madden's breasts were a pair of Danishes, Debby Crombie's got two Space Hoppers. Each armed with a gribbly nipple. Tom Yew kissed them in turn and his saliva glistened in the April sun. I know watching was wrong but I couldn't not. Tom Yew slipped off her red panties and stroked the cressy hair there.

Scary, scary, scary.

2008-12-01T19:21:00.003-06:00

There are no other words for this: "Indians are writing about everything from the Pasadena Christmas tree-lighting ceremony to kitchen remodeling to city debates about eliminating plastic shopping bags."

Outsourcing reporters and editors? Owwiiieee. It hurts so much inside. I've read about it before, but this Maureen Dowd column just drives it home for me. I refuse to believe this is the real future of journalism.

Post Script.

2008-11-21T23:11:00.003-06:00

My apologies for the absence. I was up in the hills of Virginia, a land rife with deer and bears and wildlife but devoid of high speed InterWebz. Dial-up does not cut it for blogging.

The Atlantis of the Midwest

2008-11-21T22:30:00.002-06:00

I live in New York City, but all around me are people talking all the time about Chicago. Some of these people even claim to have lived there, and I feel terrible for them. It was actually inspired by a raft of exiles who arrived in New York City not long after I did. They were clearly happy to be here, but all they could talk about was how great Chicago was, how affordable—until it started getting gentrified, and now it’s all shit, and so they had to move to New York. Talk about your age-old stories, like the hipster diaspora of people who leave one place because it got gentrified and turned to shit—how you used to be able to get a thousand whiskies for a cent, and all the bands were awesome, and people were nicer.

John Hodgman on Chicago, via the Decider

Can women write about big ideas?

2008-11-15T15:27:00.002-06:00

Blogging about blogging about blogging:

Never one to shy away from controversy, veteran feminist warrior Germaine Greer has kicked off a new controversy in the blogosphere. In writing about Malcolm Gladwell’s new book “The Outliers,” Greer asked why women don’t write “big idea” books.

From the Christian Science Monitor.

Fifty years of popular songs condensed into single sentences:

2008-11-13T23:11:00.002-06:00

The Beatles, "I Want to Hold Your Hand"
I want to do it with you.

Marvin Gaye, "Let's Get It On"
I want to do it with you.

Sir Mix-a-Lot, "Baby Got Back"
I want to do it.

Elvis Presley, "Hound Dog"
You're doing it with everyone.

R. Kelly, "I Believe I Can Fly"
I believe I want to do it with you.

...and so on.

By Marc Haynes in McSweeney's.

fiction. contest. fictional contest?

2008-11-11T19:52:00.001-06:00

Narrative magazine's fall fiction contest accepts submissions through Nov. 30. Details here.

Submission fee, but big bucks for winners.

Splinter Generation

2008-11-10T20:55:00.002-06:00

I, for one, think that Splinter Generation sounds much better than all those other stupid names people have tried to give us: Gen Y, the Pepsi Generation (wait, did Pepsi to dub us that?), the Millennials...

What’s Wrong with Generation Y (or any of those other millions of names we have)?

What does Generation Y even mean? What does the Google Generation even mean? We’ve been called Generation Y, Generation Me, the Google Generation, Generation DotNet, Millennials, and Generation 9-11 ... the list goes on forever. None of these names seem to fit. Sure, we use the internet; yes, 9-11 was a formative political experience; true, the letter Y comes after the letter X. But I argue that these names don’t sufficiently capture who we are as a group. They don’t capture who we are as a generation.

We offer the Splinter Generation as a possible alternative. Use it if you like it. Don’t use it if you hate it. Just please, for the love of God, stop calling us Generation Y.

From Splinter Generation, writing by and for those of us under 35

Economists: Novels can explain world problems

2008-11-10T20:32:00.002-06:00

Did we not believe this before some economists said something? Didn't all of us readers think that fiction has a powerful way of teaching truths about the human experience?

Those of us who were lit majors have known it all along: The novel works better than academic literature to explain global problems. But now some economists are validating that notion.
“Despite the regular flow of academic studies, expert reports, and policy position papers, it is arguably novelists who do as good a job – if not a better one – of representing and communicating the realities of international development,” says Dr. Dennis Rodgers from England’s Manchester University’s Brooks World Poverty Institute.

From "Why novels are best at explaining world problems" in the Christian Science Monitor.

"Brains are back!"

2008-11-08T13:25:00.002-06:00

After eight years of proud incuriosity and anti-intellectualism, we now have a leader who values nuance and careful thought.

What Obama's election means, above all, is that brains are back. Sense and pragmatism and the idea of considering-all-the-options are back. Studying one's enemies and thinking through strategic problems are back. Cultural understanding is back.

From Michael Hirsh in Newsweek.

As a writer (ok, ok, and a liberal), it's wonderfully refreshing that the nation's leader is an intellectual, a former professor, and a scholar of constitutional law. Sure, Laura Bush was a librarian and George Bush read Camus. But this, this is different.

As Toni Morrison and Jonathan Safran Foer look forward to this administration, so do I (see: Writers welcome a more literary president-elect in Barack Obama).

That's KABLAMMO.

2008-11-05T23:13:00.000-06:00

You are: A writer with great work that begs to be submitted to a lit mag.

Kablammo is: A new literary magazine seeking new voices. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry. 5,000 words or less.

Email your best stuff to: kablammomag (at) gmail.com. ALSO SEE the Kablammo Web site.

Handy-dandy writing tool

2008-11-05T21:55:00.002-06:00

A place to find deadlines and calls for submissions from a variety of lit mags:

NewPages Call for Submissions -- a great source for possible submissions, ranging all over, from Alimentum (food-related creative writings) to the Green Mountains Review (out of Vermont) and MUCH more.
Check. It. Out.

A day late...

2008-11-05T21:42:00.003-06:00

and a dollar short:

Poems for election day, via the New York Times, by some of the country's leading poets.

From John Ashbery (a tiny excerpt):
The old mule delivers the goods.
Nugatory diddlings are on the decline.
Stateliness has its day.

JD McClatchy may be a bit more literal with his (also an excerpt):
The older couples had voted just after dawn,
And by noon the exit polls are underway.
Some talking head opines in San Jose.
My poster is mute and silent on the lawn.

Three more at the Times.

I'm so anxious for results...

2008-11-04T18:35:00.000-06:00

... I can't even blog...

How to Read Like a President

2008-11-03T20:00:00.002-06:00

From the New York Times:
You can tell a lot about a president — or a presidential candidate — by what he reads, or says he reads. We know the iconic examples: George Washington and his rules of civility, Thomas Jefferson and the thinkers of the French and Scottish Enlightenments, Lincoln and the Bible and Shakespeare. Though a generation apart, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt both loved Alfred Thayer Mahan’s “Influence of Sea Power Upon History” and savored the imperial poems of Kipling. Together such works created a kind of Anglo-American ethos in their minds — an ethos Franklin Roosevelt would make concrete during World War II, when he and Winston Churchill quoted Edward Lear’s nonsense rhymes to each other as they fought Hitler and Japan.

Read it here.

submitsubmitsubmit

2008-10-31T23:45:00.002-05:00

The Chicago Reader is taking submissions for their annual fiction issue. Submit now through Nov. 10 -- details are here.