Category Archives: writing
On Getting Your Name Out There, Part 2: The Story That Sells the Story
For the first part of this series on authors, author sites and author blogging, go here first. When approaching an author site, what I find least interesting is a sort of bland, safe, risk-free aesthetic, a headshot with links and … Continue reading
On Getting Your Name Out There: Author Blogging
There is a great deal of pressure for writers to blog, for themselves and for others. Typically, whoever’s asking you has the presence of mind to be a little ashamed: “We can’t really pay you for this, but you’ll get … Continue reading
Filed under author's own, blogs, books, writers, writing
New World, Again
1. Oh horrifying new world, where every site I visit wants me to have a profile and to receive mailings. I have over 600 messages from them unread in my gmail account, and this is because I resent the time … Continue reading
News of the World
Note: this has been updated, 5/17/2010. Lately I kept thinking of what I thought was a quote of Susan Sontag’s from a posthumous essay, and wrote a post about it. Here is the actual quote, supplied by Joshua Benton over … Continue reading
Alexander Chee at Forest Fire
My interview with the UC Irvine Undergraduate Creative Writing journal is up. Finally, what advice do you have for aspiring writers? AC: Know that what you think a story or novel is will determine what you will write–you will write … Continue reading
Filed under author's own, writers, writing
February 19th, 2010
I just completed an interview for the forthcoming issue of the University of California at Irvine’s undergraduate creative writing journal, New Forum. Here’s an excerpt: NF: Many writers including myself grapple with the fact that creative writing in American culture … Continue reading
Filed under author's own, fiction, what is right with us, writers, writing
100 Things About A Novel, Part 3
44. I think of each of them like a visitor from another planet, the sentences being like the circuits to a vast and beautiful machine that communicates the creature. 45. Or a distant relation I’ve never met, from another country … Continue reading
100 Things About A Novel, Pt. 2
[Note: Part 1 is here.] 25. Novels are hard, not like diamonds but like fate, the choice you make that reveals it was never a choice at all. 26. Then it is the novel as jailer. You in a small … Continue reading
Filed under novels, travel, what I am working on, writers, writing
The Mis-Education (Perhaps) of Louis Menand – When to Get Your MFA or Not, part 3
[This is the conclusion, part 3 of a series, When to Get Your MFA. Or Not] There are skeptics as to the value of a MFA in writing, much less the teaching of writing, and some are not where you … Continue reading
Filed under MFA programs, writers, writing
When to Get Your MFA. Or Not. [Part 2]
[In last week's installment, I detailed my undoubtedly flawed if also successful plan to apply to MFA programs. This week, how I made my decision to go, and some advice.] Connie’s point, that I would just have to get a … Continue reading
Filed under MFA programs, writers, writing
