Writing is a journey and a difficult one at that. It is often a struggle to write, and it is often a treacherous trek to establish the habit of writing consistently. The rewards are amazing and tangible: if we do it, we end up with good work, tangible pages that can go toward completing a […]
Learning NOT to listen: by Devi Laskar Read More »
The body remembers stories. The body remembers stories in details. What we were wearing, where we were standing, what precisely we were doing when . . . The world is frozen in time, only not frozen, but captured. A small film of a moment. We see it. This is the moment before, the ordinary world.
September 11, 2012: Stories, by Elizabeth Stark Read More »
So, I’m trying to figure out this whole “concept” thing. Coming from screenwriting, it seems like there is more talk of the concept or a high concept than I’ve seen in book writing circles. First, I had to figure out, what is the difference between a “concept” and a “hook.” If you look around the
What’s the Bright Idea? By Angie Powers Read More »
Recently, Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Visit From the Goon Squad, regular New Yorker contributor, and New York Times journalist spoke at the Chilmark Community Center on Martha’s Vineyard where she (like me) has spent countless Augusts vacationing with her family being inspired by the natural beauty of the island. I was
A visit from Jennifer Egan: (Guest Blog) by Julie Rappaport Read More »
Richard Hugo wrote in The Triggering Town, of poetry: “Once a spectator said, after Jack Nicklaus had chipped a shot in from a sand trap, ‘That’s pretty lucky.’ Nicklaus is supposed to have replied, ‘Right. But I notice the more I practice, the luckier I get.’ If you write often, perhaps every day, you will
“Triggering: the Writing Life: by Devi Laskar Read More »
As some of you know well, the author Thaisa Frank will be visiting the Book Writing World this week, on Thursday, 5 – 6 p.m. to talk about craft, the writing life and her new collection, Enchantment, a book full of a diverse array of long and short fiction, some surreal, some autobiographical, some both
The Big Picture: Goals, Lists and Books: by Elizabeth Stark Read More »
What will teach us to write? “The page, the page,” says Annie Dillard in The Writing Life. I concur, but there are two pages that teach us to write, the blank page which we (I paraphrase Annie Dillard) cover with our scribble knowing that we ruin whatever we touch but touching it nonetheless . .
What will teach us to write? by Elizabeth Stark Read More »
I’ve always loved history: this is what happened and this is why you are here. And I’ve always loved the 19th century because it was like a great-grandmother, animating the lives of the oldest people I’ve known, the ones who taught my parents. When listening to my grandmother talk about my mother I soon became
Aunt Serena’s Legacy: (Guest Blog) by Melanie Lee Read More »
What I learned from reading the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel laureate and Columbian author of such perfect books such as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera: to leave every last drop of inspiration on the page. My favorite book by Garcia Marquez is a slim story called “Chronicle
Chronicle of a Story Foretold: by Devi Laskar Read More »
Next week, my kids start kindergarten. Do you remember your first day of kindergarten? What I remember about mine in that the teachers were on strike—that day and for six more weeks. There is a photograph of me, in a leotard, sitting with my father on the cement barrier that lined the lawn and curved
The First Day of Kindergarten and Other Tricks for Writers: by Elizabeth Stark Read More »
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