July 2010
22 posts
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“People have a fever, they need good words to cure them. You are the doctor....”
– Connection. | Annalemma Magazine
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The Lists We Love to Hate: First the New Yorker,... →
More on the 20 Under 40 list from the New Yorker and subsequent lists, etc.
June 2010
43 posts
Creative writing as literary 'intervention' →
aprettywar:
merryburningparty:
fwriction:
From the Guardian: bringing creative writing to ordinary schools, not just a privileged few. You rock, Katie Waldegrave.
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“For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity’s affair, they greeted one...”
– Molly Ringle, Seattle, WA
The quoted is the 2010 winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which yearly selects the “opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.”
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
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“So I text this info to Carmen, who replies, omg I think [the kids in hoodies...”
– The Man is Everywhere: I Was a Disneyland Grad Night Chaperone - The Awl
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“The reality is that I’m just not built that way. Not all writers are cut of the...”
– On Loneliness and Productivity | Lit Drift: Storytelling in the 21st Century
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A Day in the Life of a Writer →
fwriction:
A fun look at a “day in the life” of a writer, student, etc., from the awesome folks at Lit Drift:
“We’re not all going to be able to wake up to the sunrise at our lakeside writers retreat. We’re going to have gigs and side jobs. We’re going to be grumpy in the mornings. We’re going to not want to write all the time, but we’ll force ourselves to because that’s our calling.”
...
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Dzanc Books: 20 Writers to Watch - An Alternate... →
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“coprolalia - (noun) An uncontrollable or obsessive use of obscene language.”
– A.Word.A.Day —coprolalia
Poetry 365: Those Being Eaten by America, Robert... →
The cry of those being eaten by America, Others pale and soft being stored for later eating
And jefferson Who saw hope in new oats
The wild houses go on With long hair growing from between their toes The feet at night get up And run down the long white roads by themselves
The dams reverse themselves and want to go stand alone in the desert
Ministers who dive headfirst into the earth ...
7 tags
Poetry from Matt Harvey, the Official Poet in... →
Also can follow him on twitter @wimbledonpoet and there’s a radio bit with him from Radio 4; he reads “Thwok!” (which you can read here) and answers questions.
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BBC News - Wimbledon poet serves ace verse →
“Bounce bounce bounce bounce/ thwackety wackety zingety ping/ hittety backety pingety zang/ wack, thwok, thwack, pok.”
These are the opening lines from Thwok! by Matt Harvey, the first poet-in-residence at the annual two-week tennis extravaganza.
“Thwok! is my generic tennis poem,” says Harvey, whose remit includes writing a poem a day and entertaining the queues.
...
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“bromidic - (adjective) Commonplace; trite.”
– A.Word.A.Day —bromidic
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Meet Abraham Lincoln, poet. - By Robert Pinsky -... →
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Still They Hear What They Want To Hear
A man and a woman talk in a bar. A man and a woman talk while eating pudding. A man and a woman talk about trivial matters with underlying sexual tension. A man and a woman examine newspaper clippings. And talk about their gigantic, oozing pasts. She must be young and pretty, but kind of a slut. He must be somewhat mysterious or dark or torn. They must love themselves and each other. But...
“Personally, the common thread I see in literature is that authors need a few...”
– Is Literature a Young Person’s Game? Thoughts on New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 List | Fiction
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“solfatara - (noun) An area of more or less corroded and disintegrated volcanic...”
– Word of the Day for June 22, 2010: solfatara
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A.Word.A.Day --persnickety →
adjective:
Fussy about minor details.
Snobbish.
Requiring keen attention to detail, as a job.
“Goddamn, it was a doozy of a line—a harbinger of many more that I also didn’t...”
– The Paris Review » Blog Archive » Department of Sex Ed: Es Muss Sein
The Conceit of Wisdom - The Ploughshares Blog →
Books may well go the way of vinyl, as was suggested at BookExpo, where publishers enthused about interactive technologies. Books might become artifacts for quality-snobs or the nostalgic. As reading habits change, writing adapts. Agents and editors increasingly tell writers to keep their books under 220 pages (almost exactly what Carr’s is, minus footnotes), to amass Facebook friends, to...
Favorite American Presidents by The Writers - The... →
Bridget Fitzgerald:
Franklin Pierce! John Tyler! Warren G. Harding! Benjamin Harrison! Who? Mr. President, that’s who. Shout-out to those poor souls that are forgotten, set astray, constantly missing from our mental lists. That’s right, there was a Benjamin Harrison. You heard me.
“Just take a look at the bus maps’ intimidating confluence of colors, numbers,...”
– Bus Bus Riddim by Pitchaya Sudbanthad - The Morning News
“Susan Straight: I like his work very much. That’s what Tim and I were talking...”
– Susan Straight by Robert Birnbaum - The Morning News
“And then there was the book I’d worried about. “Winesburg,...”
– Books’ power to connect is as potent as ever - latimes.com
“If the book industry has taught me anything (and there’s a good chance it...”
– The next big hit. « We Who Are About To Die
“I texted Jeff.
Me: Do you think L.A. is like the internet?
Jeff: Lol....”
– In Which You Have To Ask The Price of Orange Juice - Home - This Recording
“Hello. I’ve queried more than 50 other agents with this and have gotten nowhere....”
– SlushPile Hell
Books that will induce a mindfuck@Everything2.com →
“By 2010 around two billion people - or a third of the world’s population -...”
– How English as we know it is disappearing … to be replaced by ‘Panglish’ | Mail Online
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“pluvial - adjective: Of or relating to rain, especially much rain.”
– A.Word.A.Day —pluvial
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“selkie - (noun) A creature in Scottish and Irish folklore that has the form of a...”
– Word of the Day for June 15, 2010: selkie
“He’s clearly a magazine editor and not an HR guy because he looks at me and...”
– Palindrome Follow-Up | MetaTalk
“Neil Gaiman: The problem that we are in now is that everything is about...”
– Neil Gaiman: the Prospect interview – Prospect Magazine « Prospect Magazine
Writer’s Digest - How to Give Your Character the... →
“What kind of small-hearted person wants an artist to adhere to a set of rules,...”
– An Interview with Dave Eggers, from The Harvard Advocate
“6 Shockingly Evil Things The Turn-Of-The-Century Meatpacking Industry...”
– McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Great Literature Retitled To Boost Website Traffic.
[Ira Glass:] I had this experience a couple of years ago where I got to sit in on the editorial meeting at the Onion. Every Monday they have to come up with like 17 or 18 headlines, and to do that, they generate 600 headlines per week. I feel like that’s why it’s good: because they are willing to be wrong 583 times to be right 17. [Kathryn Schulz:] That’s amazing. I’m...
“I created a list of objects, persons, things, etc. and a list of styles,...”
– The Brainstormer - The Art of Andrew Bosley
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philippic
a bitter condemnation, usually in a speech
