Harlan Coben: ’Every successful author still has to treat it as a job’ An informative article on one of my favorite writers of thrillers, Harlan Coben. And a very successful writer he is: He’s written 27 novels, seven of them New York Times No 1 bestsellers. He has 60m books in print in 41 languages, […]
On Novels and Novelists Read More »
National Poetry Month, held every April, is the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture. Inspired by the success of Black History Month (February) and Women’s History Month (March), the Academy of American Poets founded National Poetry Month in April 1996. This
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The first three months are in the books, one-quarter of the year done. I’ve posted reports for each of the first three months with all kinds of numbers. But the most important lessons don’t lie in the statistics. Beyond the numbers, so far I’ve learned two lessons from writing a blog post every day. 1.
The 2 Lessons I’ve Learned So Far from My Blog Challenge Read More »
Gestation of Ideas: On Vertical Writing and Living Nick Ripatrazone discusses vertical writing, a concept he learned from writer Andre Dubus’s essay “The Habit of Writing,” which appeared in the anthology On Writing Short Stories, edited by Tom Bailey. Dubus writes that, instead of trying to force stories into being, he gives ideas time to
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Whenever I find an interesting article, I leave it open on my browser because I just know it will form the basis of a spectacular blog post. I’ve always done this, but in the past I would finally just close everything and start over again because the web is, after all, an infinite source of
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Shakespeare’s Plays Reveal His Psychological Signature A hot trend in literary criticism is the use of computers to analyze text, a field known as digital humanities. Recently Ryan Boyd, a graduate researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, and James Pennebaker, the Liberal Arts Regents Centennial Professor of Psychology at the university, conducted one
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The lawyer for the author Harper Lee, Tonja B. Carter, received notice on Friday that an investigation by Alabama officials into whether Ms. Lee, 88, and confined to an assisted living facility, was manipulated into publishing a second novel has been closed and no evidence of abuse or neglect had been found. via Alabama Officials
Marlon James’s explosive novel about Jamaica, “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” has won this year’s Anisfield-Wolf fiction prize. Billed as “the only national juried prize for literature that confronts racism and examines diversity,” the Anisfield-Wolf book awards in fiction, nonfiction and poetry are sponsored by the Cleveland Foundation. via Marlon James wins Anisfield-Wolf fiction prize –
Marlon James wins Anisfield-Wolf fiction prize – The Washington Post Read More »
Here are my statistics for March: Number of posts written: 31 Shortest post: 220 Longest post: 2,150 Total words written: 23,345 Average post length: 753 Distribution of posts across my three blogs: Change of Perspective: 11 Notes in the Margin: 10 Retreading for Retirement: 12 The total of posts here may not equal the number
Blog a Day Challenge: March Report Read More »
It’s time for The Classics Spin #9. For this exercise, Classics Club readers are to make a numbered list of 20 unread books on their original reading list. Then next Monday, April 6, the club will announce a number between 1 and 20, and by May 15 we are to read the book with that number
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