Archive for the 'On Writing' Category

Jose Saramago quits blogging

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

The AFP reports that Nobel prize-winning author Jose Saramago, known for his haunting novel Blindness, will say goodbye to the blog that he began writing last September. Why? He needs to finish his novel. Saramago was 85 when he started the blog with a love letter to Lisbon. In his last blog entry, Saramago [...]

Google Books, The New Rumpelstiltskin

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

There’s a new Rumpelstiltskin in town, but he’s not going after the miller’s daughter. This Rumpelstiltskin has set his sights on authors, who, according to critics, may unwittingly spin him buckets full of gold. Judging from the panic issuing from home offices and cafes across the country, you’d think he was trying to steal our [...]

Readings for Writers

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

The Kenyon Review has just published a new anthology of work culled from the magazine over the past seventy years. Editor David Lynn writes:
Readings for Writers is a very different creature from your usual anthology…A different principle of selection comes into play: choosing stories, poems, and essays from across the decades to provoke lively responses [...]

Two From the World of Ink

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

I met Georges and Anne Borchardt at Sewanee Writers’ Conference in 2003. The couple co-founded their literary agency in 1967, and are known for introducing American audiences to the work of Roland Barthes, Samuel Beckett, Pierre Bourdieu, Marguerite Duras, Franz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Eugene Ionesco, Jacques Lacan, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Elie Wiesel.
When [...]

Amazon Goes All “All” on Us

Monday, April 13th, 2009

No, it’s not a typo. If you caught a recent episode of Celebrity Apprentice, you’ll notice that the clean-minded folks at All Laundry Detergent have a lot against anything dirty. They don’t like sex, they don’t like humor, and they definitely don’t like dirty words, even if they’re bleeped out. All wants you to go [...]

Wireless Amber Alerts/Sandra Cantu

Friday, April 10th, 2009

Sandra Cantu’s murder has tragically brought the plight of missing children into the spotlight once again. Although no Amber Alert was issued after Sandra’s disappearance, the Amber Alert is, in many cases, a very important part of the search for the child. The longer a child is missing, the less likely it is he or [...]

Tragic End to Tracy Girl’s Disappearance

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

update, via KCRA3:
Police have not named any suspects in the case and Sgt. Tony Sheneman insisted Tuesday that Lawless “is not at the center of the investigation and never was.” He added that he was dismayed to hear media reports that the pastor was a main suspect.
“He has been interviewed as have hundreds of [...]

How Much Honesty Is Too Much?

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

Over at right-reading, Tom Christensen shares a letter he received from a writer who says he met Tom years ago, and that Tom’s response to his work was so devastating that he stopped sharing his work for ten years. The letter-writer admits that he may have gotten Tom confused with someone else, and that, even [...]

2009 Northern California Book Awards

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

I’m popping the champagne cork today. (Okay, not yet, I’m at home alone at 10:00 in the morning, so champagne would be entirely inappropriate, right? Oh, but there’s the trusty mimosa: champagne delivered with just enough OJ to make it a bona fide breakfast item.)
NO ONE YOU KNOW has been nominated for the Northern [...]

Yes, Christine, you can begin writing at 60!

Friday, February 13th, 2009

A few days ago, a reader named Christine emailed me the following question: Do you think a person can begin being a writer at age 60? You’re so young and have such a solid educational background in literature. I know I want to write, and have a folder of snippets, unrelated, but think I’m crazy [...]

Booknotes, Litlife, & Writing Prompts from bestselling author Michelle Richmond