Reading and Writing Archives
December 23, 2009
Posted at 7:26 AM in Reading and Writing
The Collagist is a new online magazine published by Dzanc Books and edited by the writer Matt Bell. I have a flash-fiction threesome ("Twenty Questions," "It's Me," "It's You") in the Decmeber issue. Please take a look if you have a chance. You can also read an interview with me here. It feels good to be writing fiction again.
The December Collagist has a bunch of flash fiction on offer, and it's worth checking out if you're a fan of the short-short form or want a good introduction to it. In his editor's note, Matt Bell argues that flash fiction asks more, not less, of the reader:
In my opinion the best examples of the form are stories where the shortness of the pieces denies the straightforward plot, where the road to success often lies parallel to those of the prose poem and the micro-essay, with their heavily-laden language, their lyric structures, their emphasis not on the closing down of the epiphany but the opening up of the ending and its meaning. How could such a form be the right choice for attention-stunted readers and writers?
October 23, 2009
Posted at 2:57 PM in Reading and Writing
Much of the advice one hears about writing falls into what, for lack of a more inspired term, I'll call the man-up category. As in: Just do it! Believe in your book! Persevere! Embrace your creativity!
I'm all for confidence, although it's not always in great supply in my life. I do believe that perseverance--which appears in many different forms, not all of them recognized by the Writer's Marketplace crowd--is a very useful quality for a writer to have. We have all heard that lecture, and too often it has the effect of making the audience feel inadequate. ("If I were a real writer, I wouldn't take no for an answer.")
It's time to rehabilitate fear as part of the writer's arsenal. In man-up parlance, fear is a no-no. Fear is the bad thing, the inner critic, the cork in the bottle, the voice that says you'll never amount to anything, you have nothing to say, you really are a talentless hack, you killed a tree for this?
A lot of fear is destructive and distracting. Let me argue, though, that writers should learn to harness fear in a way that drives rather than hinders what we do and how we do it.
You're a journalist working on a story. Are you worried that you'll get your facts wrong and look dumb? That fear can drive you to make the calls and have the conversations that make the story worth a read. (There is such a thing as being too confident.)
You're a fiction writer worried that your stuff just isn't good enough to send out. Aren't you afraid that you might be wrong (and wouldn't you like to be proved wrong)?
Writers, what are you afraid of, and how can you use that?
October 5, 2009
Posted at 9:44 AM in Reading and Writing
When word came down that TriQuarterly magazine would shift to an online-only, student-run model next year, the news rattled many in the lit-mag community (yes, there is one). In look and editorial feel, TriQuarterly helped invent the formula for what we think of--or what we have thought of--as the small literary magazine, a print powerhouse where writers on their way up could share space with some of the big names in the game. Ever since I can remember, which is longer now than I care to admit, the writers I've known have been jockeying to get their work into the pages of TriQuarterly or Ploughshares or the Mississippi Review or any number of other journals that paid mostly in prestige.
I remember the thrill of placing a short story with Virginia Quarterly Review, a k a VQR, the feeling that I had found a door into the real-writers' club. Did anyone ever read that short story? My friends did. My family did. An agent or two did. Now that VQR has put its archives online, the story may find another reader or two. But the story I published in the story collection D.C. Noir has gotten a lot more traction--more readers, more feedback, more second life. Maybe it's a better story. I know if found a more visible home.
I'd bet cash money that the latest generation of writers still feels the pull of the lit mag. The days of the SASE (the ever-annoying Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope) are fading, now that magazines are moving more and more to online submissions, but the desire to get the lit-mag stamp of approval lingers. Maybe it should: Agents still trawl the TriQuarterlies of the world, and publishers seem more willing to believe that a writer Has Talent if he or she comes stamped with the lit-mag seal of approval. Would I publish again in a small literary journal? In a heartbeat, if I had some short stories to send out. (Soon, soon.)
But--yes, there's a but--who reads these things, other than agents (important, granted) and the writer's friends and family and maybe a few rivals? How many subscribers do most of these journals have now, and how many of those subscribers will actually sit down and read the contents? How many ever did? Having a lot of readers does not mean that you're a good writer, but if you're a good writer and readers don't find you, the creative loop doesn't fully close.
I don't mean to play favorites, but a magazine like VQR, which has reinvented itself under a new editor and which has a strong online presence and a splashier print presentation than it used to, may have a relatively robust readership in the digital era. Other journals I worry more about. I don't have answers, just a feeling that the journal-as-proving-ground model has gotten creaky, at least when it comes to attracting readers. Maybe it still works for the writers and the agents and the publishers. I'd like to know where the readers are in this equation. Are the powers behind TriQuarterly right to move the operation online and turn it over to a new editorial crew, or is there life in the old lit-mag model yet? Writers, where do you want to publish, and why?
September 16, 2009
Posted at 7:27 AM in Reading and Writing
How-to-write books have never had much appeal for me. I am happier when I learn by doing--and by reading other kinds of books. A teacher of mine in grad school used to say that bad novels teach you more about writing than good ones do; the also-rans and failures are cautionary tales, examples of what to avoid in your own work.
All rules, even the quirky personal ones, have exceptions, right? At the suggestion of Carole Sargent, proprietor of Booklab, a k a Georgetown University's Office of Scholarly and Literary Publications, I just read a book called How to Write a Lot, by Paul J. Silvia, an academic psychologist. (You should check out Carole very's astute blog about publishing and writing, BTW.) Silvia's target audience is other scholars in his field who want to be more productive as writers, and he tackles the subject with a refreshing lack of mysticism, soulfulness, or courting-the-Muse nonsense.
Silvia's working theory--and I do mean working--is that productive writers do not "find" time to write, they allot it. Does that sound uncreative? Silvia does not want writers to sit around and hope that inspiration will strike; that leads to what he calls binge writing. Binge writers spent a lot of time feeling guilty when they're not writing, which is most of the time. His advice: Set aside regular writing time every week, no matter what. Put it on your schedule. Stick to the schedule. "Prolific writers make a schedule and stick to it. It's that simple."
As a recovering binge writer--I call it brinksmanship, and it's a model that journalism tends to encourage--I figure Silvia's approach is worth a shot. So I've blocked out three weekly writing sessions. If I can allot more time, great. If not, I will still be getting something done. (Put that on your calendar, Muse.) Don't wish me luck, just tell me to stick to my schedule.
September 9, 2009
Posted at 1:45 PM in Reading and Writing
So I took a month off from blogging without really meaning to. What that says I don't know, except that I must have had things to do and places to be. Or maybe I've been lazy and distracted. I've done a little traveling this past month and a little fiction-writing. More on that anon. Anyway, I expect to rev up again here now that it's fall. On the journalistic front, most of my old Chronicle links appear to be working again, and I'll be updating the list of recent work this week. There will also be some blogroll-freshening. We're back in session. Here's to a good writing fall.
February 10, 2009
Posted at 9:33 AM in Reading and Writing
It seems I joined the so-called slow-blogging movement without intending to. Sorry about that. Time to get back to slapdash, off-the-cuff posting.
So what *have* I been doing lately? I've been out to Montgomery College to talk to a continuing-ed group about the short story I wrote for D.C. Noir. The takeaway: It's fun to talk about fiction, and I miss writing it. Must do something about that.
The larger theme was Washington as more than metaphor. I made the point, not for the first time, that for some of us, "inside the Beltway" describes where we live. I talked about Louis J. Halle, a State Department employee in the 1940s who used to get up before dawn and bike all over town to look at birds. His 1947 book Spring in Washington describes how he "undertook to be monitor of the Washington seasons, when the government was not looking." It's a neat little piece of work, part philosophy and part natural history, and an example of some of the literary possibilities this town offers if you look past the political metaphors.
I also asked the continuing-ed group how they felt about the devolution of Book World, which as many of you know is going away as a stand-alone print section. These readers are very ticked off about it. They don't want to read BW online, and they don't want to have to browse Outlook, Style, and Sunday Arts in search of reviews.
We didn't have time to get into some of the deeper questions about why, or whether, book coverage deserves its own section. That would be an interesting conversation.
To be continued.
November 19, 2008
Posted at 11:33 AM in Reading and Writing
Tonight. Check it out if you're in the vicinity and have $5 to spare. More info here.
November 12, 2008
Posted at 2:04 PM in Reading and Writing
Founded in 1999, Operation Paperback collects gently used books and sends them to American troops deployed overseas.
Many of our troops are serving far from home and living in facilities that provide few of the comforts of home. At the end of the duty day, the opportunity to escape into a good book is welcomed.
I can only imagine. Whatever you think of the war(s), this seems like a damn good idea. (Via.)
September 12, 2008
Posted at 1:15 PM in Reading and Writing
Too funny:
WASHINGTON—The National Endowment for the Arts announced Monday that it has begun construction on a $1.3 billion, 14-line lyric poem—its largest investment in the nation's aesthetic- industrial complex since the $850 million interpretive-dance budget of 1985.
"America's metaphors have become strained beyond recognition, our nation's verses are severely overwrought, and if one merely examines the internal logic of some of these archaic poems, they are in danger of completely falling apart," said the project's head stanza foreman Dana Gioia. "We need to make sure America's poems remain the biggest, best-designed, best-funded poems in the world."
On a more serious note: Gioia announced today that he's stepping down as the NEA's chairman in January, two years ahead of schedule.
August 22, 2008
Posted at 2:13 PM in Reading and Writing
Ever felt the impulse to whip out a red pen and go to town on a badly written menu or sign? Resist it. From the Arizona Republic:
Two self-anointed "grammar vigilantes" who toured the nation removing typos from public signs have been banned from national parks after vandalizing a historic marker at the Grand Canyon.
Jeff Michael Deck, 28, of Somerville, Mass., and Benjamin Douglas Herson, 28, of Virginia Beach, Va., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Flagstaff after damaging a rare, hand-painted sign in Grand Canyon National Park....
According to court records, Deck and Herson toured the United States from March to May, wiping out errors on government and private signs. On March 28, while at Desert View Watchtower on the South Rim, they used a white-out product and a permanent marker to deface a sign painted more than 60 years ago by artist Mary Colter. The sign, a National Historic Landmark, was considered unique and irreplaceable, according to Sandy Raynor, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix.
I sympathize with them. I really do. My first real job was as a copy editor. Once you've been a copy editor, you see sins against language everywhere. Just remember: One man's typo is another man's "unique and irreplaceable" artifact.
(Via Language Log, which has previously noted the activities of Deck and Herson and the Typo Eradication Advancement League. Watch here for TEAL's statement on "the signage of our National Parks and public lands.")
July 20, 2008
Posted at 9:18 PM in Reading and Writing
You'd never know it from my wardrobe, but I subscribe to Lucky, "the magazine about shopping and style." (It used to just be "the magazine about shopping"--times were simpler then.)
It's not the articles that keep me hooked, much as I appreciate being given advice on topics like "613 Smart Buys" (SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN? Are these people kidding?) and "What I Want Now!" (The sad thing is I could use some help with that.)
Nope, it's the compound descriptors that keep me sending in the subscription checks. Here, some favorites--must-haves, in Lucky parlance--from the July and August issues. Think of them as six personality types for the new millennium. Use with abandon!
1) "unbelievably adorable"
2) "sexily bare yet versatile"
3) "somewhere between sporty and tech-y"
4) "slightly prim"
5) "charmingly French, slightly nautical"
6) "elegantly stunted"
Join me over at Bookslut this week, where I'll be guest-blogging for Jessa Crispin while she's enjoying a well-deserved vacation. If you're lucky, I'll be more 1, 3, and 5 than 4 or 6 about it. No promises about 2.
May 22, 2008
Posted at 11:17 AM in Reading and Writing
Even the New Yorker has a book blog now. But this one ("loose leafs from the New Yorker books department") looks like it's worth keeping an eye on. I've already seen more female bylines there than I do in most issues of the print mag.
May 14, 2008
Posted at 8:42 AM in Reading and Writing
One of the things I love best about my job at the Chronicle is getting to do stuff like talk to people who spend their days wrestling Latin dactylic hexameters into English. A poet and classicist named Sarah Ruden has just published what appears to be the first major translation of Virgil's Aeneid by a woman. Her version, put out by Yale University Press, is the fourth new translation of the martial epic in three years, and there are at least two more in the works (one by another woman, Jane W. Joyce, and one by David Ferry, whose translations of Horace's odes are sheer poetry, in every sense).
Why so many Aeneids, and why now? And why have women steered clear of epic? Read on.
February 22, 2008
Posted at 11:37 AM in Reading and Writing
I've been getting questions about the new, reading-heavy recommendations for undergraduate creative-writing instruction that I wrote about not long ago for the Chronicle (subscription required). The guidelines, put together by the AWP (The Association of Writers and Writing Programs), have now been posted on the group's website as part of the 2008 AWP Director's Handbook. More thoughts on this later.
