> This will be useful to many writers: "How to Use Lyrics Without Paying a Fortune or a Lawyer".
> Seems half (or more) of the writing world is at the AWP Conference in Minneapolis this week. I'm not (and NJ has been just as rainy, grey, and chilly as Minnesota!). I'm eagerly awaiting the slew of posts I know will begin appearing around the web soon from conference goers, like this one at Assay Journal (covering a panel on "Trauma, Memory, and Reimagined Pasts"). I'll round up and pass on some others next week.
> You can follow a great deal of the action, including folks posting live from panels and presentations, over on Twitter, using #AWP2015 (and, for a bit of grumpy woe, there's #NotAtAwp15 !).
> The Metropolitan Museum of Art offers 400 free downloads of art books via its MetPublications division (scroll to the end of that Open Culture post, for a link to the Guggenheim's similar offer).
> I'm so pleased to see 20 new opinion writers have been hired by the New York Times for their rotating online roster, including Roxanne Gay, Adam Grant, Mimi Swartz, Jennifer Weiner, and Molly Worthen.
> Speaking of NYT: hankering for a byline in the travel section? This Q/A with a Times travel editor offers advice.
> I let you know a few weeks ago that Literary Hub was about to launch, and it has. So far I've been intrigued by the daily link list that comes via email newsletter subscription.
> Earlier this month, on the first day of the month to be exact, The Paris Review revealed a secret (and very funny) project for young readers.
> Finally, some fun ways to display books. And this: sometimes the Google alert for my name shows me something interesting another Lisa Romeo is up to. Like this woman, who's taken grief over a brother's death and turned it into something that serves the sport he loved.
p.s. My spring newsletter will go out in two weeks. You can sign up here, and you'll hear from me about four times a year (often with a special offer for newsletter subscribers only).
Have a great weekend!
Image: Flickr/Creative Commons - Travis Wise
> I love Katie Riegel's "Literary Magazine Wishes"over at The Gloria Sirens. Sample: "A human-sounding 'about' page. Pretentious = no. You don’t have to deride other branches of the literary world in order to do what you do."
> Via the New York Times' Learning Network: "500 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing". (Yes, 500. Neatly categorized. 500.)
> Perhaps a bit surprisingly, for someone who thinks of herself as something of a word nerd, and at the risk of seeming old or out of step, I had to look up the top three new words of the year named by the Oxford Dictionaries.
> It could be that this kind of word fun is more my speed: Popsonnet, where pop song lyrics (old and new) are rendered as Shakespearean sonnets.
> At the Writer Beware blog, a reminder of "How NOT to Register Copyright," including scams, fees, and the law.
> Ten major writing errors a manuscript editors sees often, and ways to avoid them.
> Caroline Leavitt details the complexities of literature and litigation involving several of her books' characters, both real and imagined.
> Finally, some odd punctuation marks.
I'm putting together my next newsletter. If you'd like to stay in touch, please use this to sign up (you'll get about four a year):
Have a great weekend!
Image: Flickr/Creative Commons - Roger Wollstadt
> Planning a blog tour (virtual book tour) to help publicize your book? Dana Sitar lists nine useful tips.
> When author Jill Smolowe needed to help market her new memoir, Four Funerals and a Wedding, she quickly realized social media was not her forte. In a post at SheWrites, Smolowe describes how hewing to the skills and connection style that feels comfortable is delivering results (and peace of mind).
> But if you are working the social media PR angle, then it's handy to understand how time-0f-day posting affects response and interaction. Social Media Today has the details.
> Looking to expand your literary reading? At the Ploughshares blog, Steph Auteri lists some favorite literary mags, lit blogs, lit sites, online lit resources.
> Finally, got a pet business-speak language peeve? Is it "reach out"? Then you might enjoy this, from ThinkMap. And, what would a mash up of the Amtrak writers residency and an oddly named literary journal look like?
> I love this analysis from debut novelist Amy Sue Nathan on the size of her body and how she figured out why it doesn't matter, even when there's no podium to hide behind at a book event -- or ever.
> You've probably seen Neil Hilbron's performance of his "OCD" poem by now, but here it is in case you haven't. My 15-year-old son brought it to my attention three days before it went viral. (I guess I've done something a little bit right -- meaning my kid noticing poetry; I don't know Neil at all.)
> Writing at the time of day (or night) when your body and mind are best suited to the task makes sense. But when life circumstances can't be altered, it's also possible to be productive even at non-peak times.
> This site -- and project, and labor of love -- says the World Needs More Love Letters. I won't argue.
> Perhaps because I spent a week in August giving interactive writing workshops at senior living facilities here in New Jersey, I was especially moved by the 96-year-old man who wrote lyrics to honor his recently-deceased wife of 72 years and inspired young musicians to put it to music.
> Need to keep track of your writing time, to sit still and write and not get up until...well maybe until you hear an alarm? There's a (free) app for that.
> Have you read Priscilla Gilman's essay in the New York Times Book Review about her son's "problem" of reading too soon, and why she knew it would instead one day serve him?
> Looking for an additional place to find calls for submission? Wordcraft's blog runs a list in their Submission Sunday posts; I've found things here I didn't encounter elsewhere.
> And, if you've got a lengthy piece to place, try this list of journals that like it long.
> Finally, what unconventional things have authors done in the name of getting their book better known? Apparently, nearly everything. And why not? Many of their *tricks* worked!
Have a great weekend!
I'm sneaking back to the blog a bit, beginning with a full Friday clean-out for you. Enjoy!
> From Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace, the incomparable Ann Hood's ten tips for "Writing a Kickass Essay," via Jason Landry.
> Want to use song lyrics in your essay, article, or book and not get into legal trouble? Here's a helpful primer -- and boy do writers need one. Crossing a music publisher is no fun.
> Here's a podcast interview with Emily Rapp, about her memoir Still Point of the Turning World, which is on my teetering to-be-read pile.
> Some real numbers about the costs associated with self-publishing.
> Are you, like Ben Dolnick, addicted to author interviews, especially those that impart secrets, tricks, unusual routines and habits that find their way into your cluttered mental file marked "if it worked for them..."?
> Christina Baker Kline, author of the recent New York Times bestselling novel Orphan Train, on how her mother kindled her childhood love of books -- and showed her at a very young age that she could write one.
> Scientific American (via Salon) debates whether e-readers inhibit comprehension. (Is it only me or does anyone wonder why Salon uses a typeface for its posts that is one of the toughest-to-read on the web?)
> Okay, maybe we can't--like David Sedaris--fill theaters with hundreds of people and read aloud to them in order to gauge reaction to works-in-progress. But much of his reading-aloud process, detailed in a Fast Company article, can be duplicated on a real life scale.
> A journal editor offers these "eight structural aspects of a well-rounded (writing) contest".
> If you're as enamored of fashion as words, a literary contest sponsored by Prada might be of interest. Prompt (seemingly inspired by its line of eye wear): "'What are the realities that our eyes give back to us? And how are these realities filtered through lenses?"
> Like long lists of blogs for writers? Here's one with 150 on it.
> Finally, Mental Floss deconstructs a fake alarmist tweet on the briefly hijacked Associated Press Twitter feed. Journalism geeks will love this.
