Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- October 2, 2015 Edition

> The New York Times reported last week that print book sales are up, e-book sales are down, as readers "return" to the physical book. Huh.

> A photographer got bored, and went in search of the best writers in his state to shoot (on film). Luckily, he lives in Maine, otherwise known as Writertown, USA.

> Here's a fascinating interview (at Jane Friedman's excellent blog) with Richard Nash, publisher of Soft Skull Press, that ranges from traditional publishing to unusual ways authors and readers can connect, to...well, just about everything. (It's originally from 2014, but appeared then in the subscription-only web magazine Scratch; and it's all still--maybe more--relevant today.)

> If you like this kind of link round-up, check out Literary Links at the Masters Reviews blog.

> By now, it may be that every living personal essay writer (and reader and editor) saw, and possibly shuddered about this piece in Salon: "The First-Person Industrial Complex" which explores the price of revealing (sometimes squirm-worthy) private lives in public.

> There's a new interview at Literary Mama with my friend Candy Schulman, on the craft of essay writing. Candy's guest post here (from 2010!), explaining how the mind of a personal essay writer works, is still heavily trafficked.

> This week, Your Blog Connection featured yours truly, talking about how I try to make this blog helpful to other writers. 

> And if you want to add more online resources to your list, try this list of 120 "most helpful websites" for writers.

> Finally, at the Princeton Alumni Review, my boss at Montclair State University (where I sometimes teach a creative nonfiction course), offers a thoughtful and funny take on words that are frequently mistaken for one another, in "Diction Slips."

Have a great weekend!

Reminder - If you live in the New York City metro area, consider this Sunday's (10/4) first Manhattan show for This Is My Brave: 12 writers, poets, and singer-songwriters on the subject of living with mental illness. I've got a ticket giveaway going on at my post from earlier in the week with the founder. Click here (or scroll down one post) for details. Closes at 5:00 EASTERN time tonight, 10/2.

Image: Flickr/Creative Commons - Lenore-M

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers - June 27, 2014 Edition

Image: Windell Oskay/Flickr, Creative Commons

> A reminder that The Review Review publishes...yes, reviews of  literary journals and magazines at their site. Here's the link to dozens of them. 

> I've often mentioned Marion Roach Smith's site for excellent guidance on memoir writing. She's gathered the Twenty Top Tips she's featured from memoir authors over the last year.

> Not in your future (or budget) to travel far for an organized writing retreat? Then plan and take off on a short, not-so-far-away, affordable one of your own, maybe with someone you love (or at least like), like Anna Leahy did recently.

> Sherrey Meyer has many good tips on revising and rewriting a memoir manuscript.

> Over at Sweatpants and Coffee, Jordan Rosenfeld has the inside scoop on Shebooks.

> Anyone can trim a piece of writing with small deletions. But Pamela Erens has learned to like the big cuts -- as in thousands of words. 

> I love the idea of longform nonfiction in digital form which readers pay a small price to read. But then there's this particular reality--a cautionary tale about one writer's experience as a digital bestseller.

> I'm not sure if any of his editors are still giving him work, but here's what one freelance writer earned last year from each venue for each article, online and print.

> Finally, what fun!  The Wall Street Journal's coverage of the  O.Henry Pun-off World Championship.

Have a great weekend!

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, June 3, 2011 Edition

► Some interesting posts and interviews lately over on the blog of the Denver Independent Creative Writing Program, like this one by Robin Black, which discusses, in part, one of my favorite craft topics – writing beginnings.

►As always, Dani Shapiro nails it with this post about the grit (not glitter) of the writer's life.

►Poynter offers this round-up of links to an interview series with prominent food writers, about the current status, impact and future of food writing.

►Lisa Tener ran a terrific interview about writing memoir, with one of my favorite writers (and mentors), Richard Hoffman, memoirist and poet.

►Want to make sure your book will be a formatter's nightmare if it goes on the Kindle? Just follow the advice of Garth Risk Hallberg's Seven Steps to Kindle-Proof Your Book at The Millions. You will be in dubiously fabulous company, by the way.

►Editors and other staffers of the New York Times Sunday Magazine publish a blog, The 6th Floor.

►Finally if, like me, you find the disclaimers/authors' notes at the front of many modern memoirs of interest, you'll love this mash-up by Marty Kihn, which combines not just new, but older and unexpected ones as well.

Have a great weekend!

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: May 13, 2011 Edition

Note: Blogger is having problems. For those who subscribe by email, I have no idea why you got a post delivered today from January, and yesterday's post is now lost in space....yep, it's Friday the 13th all right. Which means it's time to clean the fridge...

For my new readers, hopping over from Catbird Scout, Face Things, Alltop, and Practicing Writing, what I do (most) Fridays is serve up a mix of interesting things I've come across online. It's named after the way I feed my family most Friday nights – cooking (or at least assembling) whatever I find in my fridge. Sometimes the result is a tasty, satisfying meal; other times, well – judge for yourself. Enjoy!

► Mediabistro lists five free guides to ebook formatting and style.

► Midge Raymond offers Ten Tips for a Writing Life. I happen to like number 10: "Remind yourself of why you write. Sometimes I get grouchy about not having enough time to write; other times, I’m grouchy because I have to sit down and slog through a beastly first draft. This is when I need to remind myself that I choose to do this, every day."

► Check out the "nearly100 fantastic pieces of journalism" from 2010, according to The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf. A few of my favorites are on the list, including Autism's First Child (John Donvan and Caren Zucker), Letting Go (Atul Gawande), Roger Ebert: The Essential Man (Chris Jones), and The Lost Girls (Mimi Swartz).

► Got a bad case of book deal envy? Horribly jealous of your (better / more frequently) published writer friends? What to do? Get over yourself, according to Dear Sugar at The Rumpus.

► Over at The Renegade Writer, Julie Fast talks about how writers can get work done even when depressed. (I'd say that should come in handy for…oh maybe everyone?)

► I hear that my friend Christin Geall made a dynamic presentation at the Creative Nonfiction Collective Conference in Banff, Canada, about "Momoir" -- and the implications of that term and the genre. If you're in the area, you can catch Christin later this month at a nonfiction panel, To Tell The Truth, sponsored by the Malahat Review, at the Greater Vancouver Public Library.

► More friends doing cool things: Christina Baker Kline and Deborah Siegel are partnering to present a day long program in Brooklyn on May 21, for writing mothers who want to restart, kick-start or otherwise light a fire in their writing lives. Can't go? Then at least read Christina's 20 ideas for rejuvenating your writing life, right where you are.

► Finally, what is a Pop-Up Magazine? (Hint: this sounds like the kind of literary event even my husband might like.)

Have a great weekend.

Friday Fridge Clean Out – Links for Writers, Jan. 28, 2011 Edition

►Novelist Nina Vida on how she resurrected a 20-year-old, traditionally published novel of hers, revised and independently rebirthed it as an ebook on her own.

► A lovely post by Ellen Meeropol on the writer's job of writing AND reading, over at Word Love, the blog of novelist Randy Susan Meyers. And another one over there by Karen Dionne, with the author's perspective on the making of an audiobook.

► Two writing sites I hadn't seen before: Life Story Writing and Extreme Writing Now. The latter, among other things, offers writing prompts, and you know how crazy I am about prompts.

► I mentioned his Chronicle of Higher Education essay here a few weeks ago, and now The Shadow Scholar, who earned a living ghosting college term papers and graduate theses, has, predictably, landed a book deal.

►Amazon is now selling Kindle Singles, short (10K – 30K words), priced at $2.99 or less. Interesting assortment of authors on their first offering list, ranging from Darin Strauss to Pete Hamill, Ron Rosenbaum to actress Claudia Lonow.

►Esquire magazine contributing writer Chris Jones (who wrote the wonderful piece on film critic Roger Ebert and his cancer battle last year) has a new blog, where anything might come up.

► I'm looking forward to seeing Andrew Rossi's Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times, which recently captured much attention at Sundance.

► Finally, a hilarious digression -- submit to this "journal" and eliminate the agony of waiting to hear if your submission has been rejected.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: October 29th Edition

Some link list love – enjoy!

► Ah, the artist colony, the writer residency, the artist retreat – peace and quiet, no distractions, a place and a time to tune out the world and do nothing but write, right? Not so much anymore, now that wifi connections have taken hold at many locations.

►Nonfiction writers (and those who enjoy reading essays), have you checked out the Essay Daily blog? The site's own description reads: A filter for and an ongoing conversation about essays and magazines of interest. Worth the trip, especially for the sidebar list of links to Homes for the Essay.

►I'm a big proponent of having a writing accountability buddy, and also a quantifiable submission plan. Over on Twitter, some writers have begun the #10bythen list. The idea is, you commit to making 10 submissions a month, and then update your fellow writers about your progress, commiserate, lend support, and send up whoops for acceptances.

►While these kinds of lists are sometimes tiresome, The New Haven Review put a new twist on it with "20 Nonfiction writers under 40."

►Do you use the feature at Amazon which allows you to search inside the book before you buy? According to this report, a new patent suggests the giant online bookseller may be considering charging for this service in the future.

►If you are considering publishing an ebook, perhaps no one is better suited to give you the dollars and sense scoop than J.A. Konrath, whose ebook-only books have sold in the millions. Check his blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. Then, head over to Lauren Baratz-Logsted's feisty installment of her Disrespectful Interviewer series with the good-natured author.

►And finally, do you speak "college slang"? Would you even want to? Inquiring word geeks only, please.

Update: Don't know why, but several of these links weren't working; they have been fixed now!

Have a great weekend.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: April 23rd Edition

► Interesting interview with novelist J.A. Konrath, who is apparently making a tidy living from selling his books almost exclusively on the Kindle: “I've sold 40,000 ebooks since last April. At first, I was amused to be paying my mortgage with Kindle earnings. But now it's turning into serious money.” Indeed.


►Good tips over on Women’s Memoirs, on how the words we remember loved ones saying, and the way we remember their being spoken, can impact our memoir writing.

►The Rejectionist (an assistant to a literary agent), takes aim at the submissions by MFA graduates (mostly fiction).

► Hey, I may never get to Hawaii, but I like the tours and reviews of the state’s libraries over at the Hawaii Book Blog. I don’t know of any other sites that do this for libraries, do you?

►Every freelance writer has seen their share of lousy fee offers. Now, Forbes wants some of the contributors to its website to work for free because “your posts would be available to millions of Forbes readers.” Gee, swell. Wonder if any of them will offer to pay the writers’ rent. And by the way, we’re not talking “citizen journalist” bloggers here. Apparently, the magazine/site – dedicated to helping its readers increase their financial position – is making the offer to established financial journalists.

► Narrative magazine is coming to the iPad, and they’re holding a contest to help kick off the new free app.

► Writers in the San Mateo County, California area have a few days left to enter the nonfiction contest about a special horse, sponsored by local resident Verna Dreisbach, editor of Why We Ride: Women Writers on the Horse in Their Lives, which, if you haven’t been reading this blog much, is just out from Seal Press (and I am one of the contributors).

► One of my online students published this fun little piece, which she worked on during a week we focused on humor. It’s up over at The Writing Mamas – a nifty site for those who write and mother.

►Finally, when I want a quick laugh, I sometimes head over to Dr. Grumpy’s blog, written by a fed-up anonymous neurologist. It has nothing to do with writing, usually. Except for the other day, when I was working on a future lesson about comic dialogue for my online classes and came across this:
Dr. Grumpy: "What time was your seizure last night?"
Mrs. Etoh: "Around 10:00, as we were leaving the bar."
Dr. Grumpy: "I thought you'd stopped drinking?"
Mrs. Etoh: "I did, but last night we had a round after our AA meeting."

Have a great weekend.