Friday, February 4, 2011

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, Feb. 4, 2011 Edition

Stats are telling me I have a bunch of new readers – so, Welcome! On Fridays, I post links for writers – an entirely eclectic and personal assortment of what I've stumbled across and think may be useful, interesting, intriguing, odd and sometimes, funny. Enjoy!

►In this interview over at Second Act, novelist Terry McMillan describes what happened to her characters while in revision stage for one of her novels: "With each subsequent rewrite, I changed it to be more about them and less about me." So many other good insights in the piece too.

►This weekend, when so many writers in Washington, D.C., at the annual conference of AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs), taking a look at the toll the modern writing rat race takes seems particularly apt. Amber Sparks evaluates and decides to step off the maddening treadmill of write fast / publish frequently / share & promote your published work like mad online / write about your writing / then do it all again. (hat tip Cathy Day via Practicing-Writing). Also, read Cathy's post about AWP and anxiety.

►Regular readers of this blog know that I have a thing about the art of writing song lyrics. I simply find it fascinating and therefore loved this piece in the New York Times about how a budding songwriter sought help from a Pulitzer Prize winning poet to improve his lyric writing craft.

►Speaking of poetry, O, The Oprah Magazine's April issue will spotlight poetry, in recognition of National Poetry Month. I feel divided about this. A monster mainstream magazine spotlighting poetry is a good thing, right? But they're planning to mix celebrity poetry with that of recognized poets. And their choice of guest editor? Not a poet, but Maria Shriver. I get that she's (apparently) a lover of poetry, but I wonder – for a magazine devoted to empowering women and recognizing their achievements, might it be a better idea to bring a real live female POET on board to edit the issue?

The Atavist presents long-form journalism on the iPad, iPhone, iPodTouch, Nook, Kindle and other platforms. Since I don't have any of those devices (yet) I can't personally vouch for the content, though people I trust say they've read engaging pieces of good quality there.

► This one has been in my Friday Fridge Clean-Out hopper for a while and I don't know why I haven't passed it on sooner: Nathan Bransford on writing better dialogue.

► There seems to be something for every kind of writer over at Working Writers, from interviews with mainstream novelists to profiles of poets, tech tips, productivity discussions, and explorations of craft.

►One of my writing coaching clients tipped me off about Sentence First: An Irishman's blog about the English Language. Word and language geeks could waste some real time over there.

►Library Journal's list of five notable memoirs which will debut over the next three months, is now up.

►And finally, while you're waiting (and waiting…) to hear back on submissions to literary journals, you could catch up on reviews of the journals themselves, plus a little (or sometimes, a lot) of writerly jabs in their direction over at the Review Review. (Be sure to read the About page.)

Have a great weekend!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I read on another site (wish I remember where) that Oprah is not paying for the poems and she is claiming all rights for them, too. The site provided the "small print" attached to the online application.