Friday, January 8, 2010

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: January 8 Edition

► Roger Ebert, film critic legend, whose surgeries have destroyed his ability to speak or eat, wrote a compelling blog post on the subject.

►I’m planning to get the new collection, Interference and Other Stories, by Richard Hoffman, a key faculty member in my MFA program, from whom I learned a great deal. As for his work, I like the way one reviewer put it: "In the case of author Richard Hoffman, you may well finish his stories only to find that they're not finished with you."

►Hey, here's an idea: "Encourage others to respect your writing time. This starts with you respecting your writing time." Nine other tips for liberating more time to write – plus lots of other interesting posts -- are over at AuthorCulture.

► Have an opinion about, well, anything you can express with the opening line: "There are two kinds of people in the world…."? Then head on over to the fun Two Kinds of People blog for an essay guest post contest, where Susan Bearman has been posting – seriously, comically, engagingly -- about dichotomous folks and their interests/likes/dislikes for quite a while.

►I'm not sure there was anything Elizabeth Gilbert could write as a follow-up to her wildly profitable memoir Eat, Pray, Love (5 million copies in print, Julia Roberts film in production) that would please critics. Her new book, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage was bound to generate mixed reviews. Hey, Gilbert's a Jersey girl now, so I'm in her corner!

►A rerun of the October interview with Julie Metz, author of the memoir Perfection, will air on Oprah today.

►From the Department of Shameless Self-promotion: I was honored to be included in the latest round-up of accomplishments by members of the Emerging Writers Network, which does so much good on behalf of so many writers.

► From the let's-hope-it's-not-really-that-bad department: From a literary agent: Statistics to Torture Yourself With in 2010. From the Los Angeles Times: Freelancing Writing's Unfortunate New Model. Let me know when you start having fun.

►Finally, if after reading those, you still want to write, consider siging up for (free) my Prompt-a-Day project for January here.

Have a great weekend.

5 comments:

Mummy mania said...

Thanks for highlighting Roger Ebert's blog - what an amazing man. what an amazing story.

Elizabeth said...

Thanks for the heads up on Richard Hoffman's new collection. He was a professor in my MFA program too (the guy works hard!) and I learned a lot in his memoir class.

fullsoulahead.com said...

Wow. Love the Ebert essay.

Can't wait to dive into the rest of your links here.

Have a great weekend Lisa!

Susan Bearman said...

Thanks, as always for your wonderful Friday links, and for including my Two Kinds People writing contest in this week's list.

Your links mean I don't spend my writing time searching for good stuff on the Web (well, at least not as much of my writing time. And do you know what I've been doing with all that extra writing time? Writing to your emailed prompts, so thanks for those, too!

Houston A.W. Knight said...

Interesting post!

Hawk