I've long sought to provide information on emergency monies available to writers in times of crisis. This week I was able to add a new resource to the list-in-progress: PEN's new page featuring links to emergency funding programs for writers.
(This is one instance in which I hope you won't find yourself needing the resource I direct you to.)
Friday, June 29, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
50 Favorite Magazines
I love articles like the Chicago Tribune's annual list of its 50 favorite magazines. Not sure I can tell you exactly why. Anyway, if you're looking for more reading material (or, perhaps, a few new freelance markets to investigate), you'll doubtless appreciate the short profiles of well-known (and less well-known) beloved publications. (via Romenesko)
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The Web Browser
What do you think: "Web Wanderings" or "The Web Browser" as a title for these round-up posts?
A heartfelt merci to The Elegant Variation for its post on Romain Gary, author of one of my all-time favorite novels. (It's a French novel, with an English translation available.)
==========
Mind the apostrophes!
==========
Obama is a poet.
The New Yorker helps us know it.
==========
Roy Peter Clark reveals the true origins of that much-cited phrase among fiction instructors--"murder your darlings"--here.
==========
Bravo, Dana Gioia. (via aldaily.com)
A heartfelt merci to The Elegant Variation for its post on Romain Gary, author of one of my all-time favorite novels. (It's a French novel, with an English translation available.)
==========
Mind the apostrophes!
==========
Obama is a poet.
The New Yorker helps us know it.
==========
Roy Peter Clark reveals the true origins of that much-cited phrase among fiction instructors--"murder your darlings"--here.
==========
Bravo, Dana Gioia. (via aldaily.com)
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Delving Into the Toolbox: An Interview with Sands Hall
(This interview originally appeared in The Practicing Writer, September 2006.)
Delving Into the Toolbox: An Interview with Sands Hall
by Erika Dreifus
It's a true joy for me to present this interview with Sands Hall, one of my first fiction teachers (and one of the finest writing teachers out there today). Sands is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and holds a second MFA in Acting; her experience as a director, actor, and playwright gives her a unique perspective on the writing process. In addition to her work as a freelance editor, she facilitates private workshops; she is also on the staff of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley and teaches for conferences such as the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, as well as for the University of California, Davis, Extension Programs, where she was recently honored with an Excellence in Teaching and Outstanding Service Award.
Sands is the author of the novel, Catching Heaven (a Ballantine Reader's Circle selection and a Willa Award Finalist, Best Contemporary Fiction). Her produced plays include an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and the drama Fair Use. She is an Affiliate Artist with The Foothill Theatre Company and lives in Nevada City, a historic mining town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in California.
Recently Sands "talked" with your editor via e-mail about her latest book, Tools of the Writer's Craft (Moving Finger Press, 2005):
Erika Dreifus: What inspired you to write and publish Tools of the Writer's Craft?
Sands Hall: I'd been teaching and editing for a number of years and found that I was scribbling similar comments, again and again, in the margins of student and client manuscripts. I decided to put those thoughts into organized form, and the essays became a sort of shorthand, as in, "see my thoughts about this in the attached." Then I began to include them in course packs of various classes, as a way to ensure that everyone in a given class would share a sensibility and nomenclature. I was often told they were useful, but thought that getting them officially published would be an arduous task--until my blessed editor, Steve Susoyev, and Moving Finger Press decided to see them into print.
The book also includes exercises. These started as assignments I gave myself, to try and solve particular writing problems, and at some point I began to assign them to students. (Editor's Note: For a sample exercise, click here.) As a teacher I find them extremely useful: when an entire workshop is working on the same exercise, with the same focus and objectives, the discussion is similarly focused, on a specific and particular craft problem. The result is that what is learned in the writing (and critiquing) of, say, 300 words, can be applied by the writer to a whole manuscript, the larger endeavor. It is exciting and gratifying to see the leap in ability and understanding that the exercises create in a workshop of diligent and generous writers.
In most other art forms an artist practices every day: a dancer does pliés, a painter takes on "studies," someone longing to get better on the mandolin plays scales. The exercises in the book offer a way to practice writing. As often as not the pieces generated wind up as part of a larger piece, although that needn't be the reason for tackling them.
ED: How do you see readers integrating these two parts of the book, "The Essays," and "The Exercises"?
SH: The section of the book that contains the exercises is called "Put It to Work," and that pretty much explains the idea. The essays offer theory and the exercises offer a way to put that theory into practice.
In my experience, one gets better--more effective--as a writer by reading, writing, critiquing writing (by which I mean, reading with a discerning eye as to what particular writers, published or unpublished, are doing); then reading and writing and discerning some more.
ED: As it happens, the book opens with an extensive discussion of "Making Workshops Work." In my experience, this is an often-underemphasized aspect of writing instruction. What has led you to place such importance on it?
SH: Not long after Tools was published a (discerning) reader wondered why "Making Workshops Work" is the first of the essays in the book, rather than, as she thought it should be, the final one. I thought it a fair question, as it's true that the essay assumes some knowledge of the craft issues discussed in the rest of the volume. It says a lot about my own passions that I lead off with that essay.
In the last five decades workshops have tended to focus on what a writer is doing that does not work rather than what does, with the result that the "learning process" and environment are ones that can humiliate and demean rather than encourage and support. Of course this rests largely on the shoulders of the facilitator of a given workshop, the tone and the system--the "workshop methodology" if you will--he or she sets or insists upon.
I think workshops, for a long while, were a bit like that image we have of a ballet class painted by Degas, where the ballet master has a long stick with which to rap or pummel a ballerina's unaesthetic or unruly calves and arms, accompanied by words of degradation; this was intended to improve technique, and certainly created legendary dancers. I have come to believe that this kind of teaching, teaching with abuse and fear, is simply old-fashioned, patriarchic, but it still goes on. (I've had students, inculcated in this tradition, tell me they don't feel they've had a "good" workshop if they don't feel shredded at the end of class.) Yet there have always been masters and choreographers who work more, dare I say, lovingly, enthusiastically, positively, and the result is just as lovely and "correct"--and certainly more pleasurable for the artists involved. The essay is an effort to encourage another way to participate in a workshop, although these are certainly not new notions.
In addition, it took me such a long time, when I was in the Iowa Writers' Workshop, to figure out just what a workshop was supposed to accomplish, and I wish I'd known some of that when I started the program, rather than just beginning to get the point of it at the end of those two years. So the essay is also an effort to pull these ideas together, and intended to help students get a jump start on the workshop process; above all, I hope they will examine and own the idea that the more they put in to critiquing the writing of others, the more they will take back to their own
efforts.
ED: Some of the material in this book was happily familiar to me as your former student. How has your vision/definition of "tools of the writer's craft" evolved over the years you've been teaching and writing?
SH: It has to do with that idea of "a dancer does plies" articulated above. There are some things one cannot be in control of: basic talent, luck, timing. But there are things a writer can control, and one of those is to be the best writer he or she can be. In the end, art is largely a matter of the craft it takes to create that art: one can write one great song by accident, or shape clay into something brilliant once or twice without "knowledge," but those artists that endure, whose work stays with us, at some point grew into or grasped elements of what it is that created--sustained and improved--what they did before. That's craft, and it seems to me by attempting to pinpoint and discuss various components of artful storytelling--vivid writing, who is telling the story, rendering life into art--one might grasp some tools that can be manipulate with *purpose*--a very important word to me--to create effective writing.
ED: You have experience as an actor, director, playwright, novelist, and, obviously, essayist. How do you see the "tools of the writer's craft" crossing and/or overlapping genres?
SH: Well, I certainly hope your readers will be inspired to buy the book and find out. Seriously, the essays do describe elements of my theater experience that have proven useful to me as a writer, and I've had any number of students who have said that it is some theatrical metaphor or image that allowed them to grasp some aspect of writing that had otherwise eluded them: turning down the sound on a scene to underscore the idea of show versus tell; the idea of what a reader "sees" as the curtain goes up, or a camera fades in, to illustrate character; the idea of point of view as a camera; to name a few.
ED: What are you working on now?
SH: My new novel, Xie, is currently in New York. Like my previous novel, Catching Heaven, Xie has three narrators, but this novel also dances across a lot of history: one narrator is a playwright, living now, who is writing a play based on a trove of letters written between 1869 and 1920 by a woman who gets inspired by the women's suffrage movement. Of course I've had to write those letters, and even some portions of the play, so it's required a lot of research. I've had a wonderful time and hope my readers will too.
ED: Thank you, Sands!
===========
Tools of the Writer's Craft
by Sands Hall
Moving Finger Press, 298 pages.
Paperback, $15
(c) Copyright 2006 Erika Dreifus
Delving Into the Toolbox: An Interview with Sands Hall
by Erika Dreifus
It's a true joy for me to present this interview with Sands Hall, one of my first fiction teachers (and one of the finest writing teachers out there today). Sands is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and holds a second MFA in Acting; her experience as a director, actor, and playwright gives her a unique perspective on the writing process. In addition to her work as a freelance editor, she facilitates private workshops; she is also on the staff of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley and teaches for conferences such as the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, as well as for the University of California, Davis, Extension Programs, where she was recently honored with an Excellence in Teaching and Outstanding Service Award.
Sands is the author of the novel, Catching Heaven (a Ballantine Reader's Circle selection and a Willa Award Finalist, Best Contemporary Fiction). Her produced plays include an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and the drama Fair Use. She is an Affiliate Artist with The Foothill Theatre Company and lives in Nevada City, a historic mining town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in California.
Recently Sands "talked" with your editor via e-mail about her latest book, Tools of the Writer's Craft (Moving Finger Press, 2005):
Erika Dreifus: What inspired you to write and publish Tools of the Writer's Craft?
Sands Hall: I'd been teaching and editing for a number of years and found that I was scribbling similar comments, again and again, in the margins of student and client manuscripts. I decided to put those thoughts into organized form, and the essays became a sort of shorthand, as in, "see my thoughts about this in the attached." Then I began to include them in course packs of various classes, as a way to ensure that everyone in a given class would share a sensibility and nomenclature. I was often told they were useful, but thought that getting them officially published would be an arduous task--until my blessed editor, Steve Susoyev, and Moving Finger Press decided to see them into print.
The book also includes exercises. These started as assignments I gave myself, to try and solve particular writing problems, and at some point I began to assign them to students. (Editor's Note: For a sample exercise, click here.) As a teacher I find them extremely useful: when an entire workshop is working on the same exercise, with the same focus and objectives, the discussion is similarly focused, on a specific and particular craft problem. The result is that what is learned in the writing (and critiquing) of, say, 300 words, can be applied by the writer to a whole manuscript, the larger endeavor. It is exciting and gratifying to see the leap in ability and understanding that the exercises create in a workshop of diligent and generous writers.
In most other art forms an artist practices every day: a dancer does pliés, a painter takes on "studies," someone longing to get better on the mandolin plays scales. The exercises in the book offer a way to practice writing. As often as not the pieces generated wind up as part of a larger piece, although that needn't be the reason for tackling them.
ED: How do you see readers integrating these two parts of the book, "The Essays," and "The Exercises"?
SH: The section of the book that contains the exercises is called "Put It to Work," and that pretty much explains the idea. The essays offer theory and the exercises offer a way to put that theory into practice.
In my experience, one gets better--more effective--as a writer by reading, writing, critiquing writing (by which I mean, reading with a discerning eye as to what particular writers, published or unpublished, are doing); then reading and writing and discerning some more.
ED: As it happens, the book opens with an extensive discussion of "Making Workshops Work." In my experience, this is an often-underemphasized aspect of writing instruction. What has led you to place such importance on it?
SH: Not long after Tools was published a (discerning) reader wondered why "Making Workshops Work" is the first of the essays in the book, rather than, as she thought it should be, the final one. I thought it a fair question, as it's true that the essay assumes some knowledge of the craft issues discussed in the rest of the volume. It says a lot about my own passions that I lead off with that essay.
In the last five decades workshops have tended to focus on what a writer is doing that does not work rather than what does, with the result that the "learning process" and environment are ones that can humiliate and demean rather than encourage and support. Of course this rests largely on the shoulders of the facilitator of a given workshop, the tone and the system--the "workshop methodology" if you will--he or she sets or insists upon.
I think workshops, for a long while, were a bit like that image we have of a ballet class painted by Degas, where the ballet master has a long stick with which to rap or pummel a ballerina's unaesthetic or unruly calves and arms, accompanied by words of degradation; this was intended to improve technique, and certainly created legendary dancers. I have come to believe that this kind of teaching, teaching with abuse and fear, is simply old-fashioned, patriarchic, but it still goes on. (I've had students, inculcated in this tradition, tell me they don't feel they've had a "good" workshop if they don't feel shredded at the end of class.) Yet there have always been masters and choreographers who work more, dare I say, lovingly, enthusiastically, positively, and the result is just as lovely and "correct"--and certainly more pleasurable for the artists involved. The essay is an effort to encourage another way to participate in a workshop, although these are certainly not new notions.
In addition, it took me such a long time, when I was in the Iowa Writers' Workshop, to figure out just what a workshop was supposed to accomplish, and I wish I'd known some of that when I started the program, rather than just beginning to get the point of it at the end of those two years. So the essay is also an effort to pull these ideas together, and intended to help students get a jump start on the workshop process; above all, I hope they will examine and own the idea that the more they put in to critiquing the writing of others, the more they will take back to their own
efforts.
ED: Some of the material in this book was happily familiar to me as your former student. How has your vision/definition of "tools of the writer's craft" evolved over the years you've been teaching and writing?
SH: It has to do with that idea of "a dancer does plies" articulated above. There are some things one cannot be in control of: basic talent, luck, timing. But there are things a writer can control, and one of those is to be the best writer he or she can be. In the end, art is largely a matter of the craft it takes to create that art: one can write one great song by accident, or shape clay into something brilliant once or twice without "knowledge," but those artists that endure, whose work stays with us, at some point grew into or grasped elements of what it is that created--sustained and improved--what they did before. That's craft, and it seems to me by attempting to pinpoint and discuss various components of artful storytelling--vivid writing, who is telling the story, rendering life into art--one might grasp some tools that can be manipulate with *purpose*--a very important word to me--to create effective writing.
ED: You have experience as an actor, director, playwright, novelist, and, obviously, essayist. How do you see the "tools of the writer's craft" crossing and/or overlapping genres?
SH: Well, I certainly hope your readers will be inspired to buy the book and find out. Seriously, the essays do describe elements of my theater experience that have proven useful to me as a writer, and I've had any number of students who have said that it is some theatrical metaphor or image that allowed them to grasp some aspect of writing that had otherwise eluded them: turning down the sound on a scene to underscore the idea of show versus tell; the idea of what a reader "sees" as the curtain goes up, or a camera fades in, to illustrate character; the idea of point of view as a camera; to name a few.
ED: What are you working on now?
SH: My new novel, Xie, is currently in New York. Like my previous novel, Catching Heaven, Xie has three narrators, but this novel also dances across a lot of history: one narrator is a playwright, living now, who is writing a play based on a trove of letters written between 1869 and 1920 by a woman who gets inspired by the women's suffrage movement. Of course I've had to write those letters, and even some portions of the play, so it's required a lot of research. I've had a wonderful time and hope my readers will too.
ED: Thank you, Sands!
===========
Tools of the Writer's Craft
by Sands Hall
Moving Finger Press, 298 pages.
Paperback, $15
(c) Copyright 2006 Erika Dreifus
Monday, June 25, 2007
Monday Morning Market/Job Listings
Hope you all had a great weekend. Below, the latest batch of opportunities.
Casagrande Press is now taking submissions for four new anthologies: Surfing's Greatest Misadventures 2; Golf's Greatest Misadventures; Fishing's Greatest Misadventures; and Wedding's Greatest Misadventures. Pays: $100 plus four copies. Check the site for specific volume deadlines.
==========
There's still time (but not much) to submit an essay for possible inclusion in Chicken Soup for the Wine Lover's Soul. See the announcement posted at The Renegade Writer blog.
==========
TheSavvyGal.com, an online magazine for women, is "looking for freelance writers at the beginning of their career who are looking to be published; we pay minimal ($25 per article) but do have national and international readership. We are looking for travel, health, career, automotive and other feature story ideas in particular." See the announcement here.
==========
LOTS more submission calls, contests announcements, and other opportunities are coming up in the July issue of our very own Practicing Writer newsletter. If you're not already a subscriber, please click here (it's a free e-newsletter, and we keep e-mail addresses confidential). Expect the issue by week's end in your e-mailbox. (Subscribers can also always check the archives.)
==========
The Graduate School of Business at Stanford University is looking for part-time writing specialists. See the announcement here.
==========
PEN America, the literary journal published by PEN American Center, "seeks an experienced and exceptionally well-organized full-time Managing Editor." Check the announcement at the PEN Web site.
==========
The University of Southern California is looking for a Director for its Master of Professional Writing program. See the Chronicle announcement.
==========
Manhattanville College (Purchase, NY) seeks a Director for its Academic Writing and Composition program. See the announcement at HigherEdJobs.com.
Casagrande Press is now taking submissions for four new anthologies: Surfing's Greatest Misadventures 2; Golf's Greatest Misadventures; Fishing's Greatest Misadventures; and Wedding's Greatest Misadventures. Pays: $100 plus four copies. Check the site for specific volume deadlines.
==========
There's still time (but not much) to submit an essay for possible inclusion in Chicken Soup for the Wine Lover's Soul. See the announcement posted at The Renegade Writer blog.
==========
TheSavvyGal.com, an online magazine for women, is "looking for freelance writers at the beginning of their career who are looking to be published; we pay minimal ($25 per article) but do have national and international readership. We are looking for travel, health, career, automotive and other feature story ideas in particular." See the announcement here.
==========
LOTS more submission calls, contests announcements, and other opportunities are coming up in the July issue of our very own Practicing Writer newsletter. If you're not already a subscriber, please click here (it's a free e-newsletter, and we keep e-mail addresses confidential). Expect the issue by week's end in your e-mailbox. (Subscribers can also always check the archives.)
==========
The Graduate School of Business at Stanford University is looking for part-time writing specialists. See the announcement here.
==========
PEN America, the literary journal published by PEN American Center, "seeks an experienced and exceptionally well-organized full-time Managing Editor." Check the announcement at the PEN Web site.
==========
The University of Southern California is looking for a Director for its Master of Professional Writing program. See the Chronicle announcement.
==========
Manhattanville College (Purchase, NY) seeks a Director for its Academic Writing and Composition program. See the announcement at HigherEdJobs.com.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Friday Find: "Where to Get Published"
This find I owe to the PayingWriterJobs group I subscribe to. It's an archive of articles on "where to get published." Each article profiles a specific travel-related publication.
A couple of caveats are in order: Not every publication profiled pays its writers, so you'll need to sift through the listings carefully. And you'll have to skip over the ads in each article, too.
Still, if you're looking to expand your collection of travel-pubs-to-pitch, this may well help you.
A couple of caveats are in order: Not every publication profiled pays its writers, so you'll need to sift through the listings carefully. And you'll have to skip over the ads in each article, too.
Still, if you're looking to expand your collection of travel-pubs-to-pitch, this may well help you.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Free Career Advice for an MFA Grad
Looking for some guidance on polishing your curriculum vitae for that teaching job application? Check out this announcement from the Chronicle of Higher Education, which reads (in part):
"Now is your chance to get some free advice as part of the CV Doctor's annual critique of readers' vitas. Submit your CV by June 29, and it may be selected for an online, public critique."
This year the "CV Doctor" columnists plan to evaluate the CVs of job candidates in four specific fields, including "An M.F.A. (in creative writing, performing arts, or visual arts) seeking a teaching position."
For the curious, the results of the critique will appear on the Chronicle's site in August.
"Now is your chance to get some free advice as part of the CV Doctor's annual critique of readers' vitas. Submit your CV by June 29, and it may be selected for an online, public critique."
This year the "CV Doctor" columnists plan to evaluate the CVs of job candidates in four specific fields, including "An M.F.A. (in creative writing, performing arts, or visual arts) seeking a teaching position."
For the curious, the results of the critique will appear on the Chronicle's site in August.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Web Wanderings
Just a few of my latest discoveries to brighten your Wednesday!
Still dreaming of a charmed life as a travel writer? Read Tim Leffel's article on the myths of the profession. (via WrittenRoad.com)
==========
A few weeks ago I saw the remarkable new movie, Away from Her, which, as you may already know, is based on this short story by Alice Munro. (via the Kenyon Review blog)
==========
After you read the Munro story (or see the movie) you'll probably be grateful for a few laughs. This piece on "inventively annoying prose" fits the bill! (via Arts & Letters Daily)
==========
Maybe this post on rules freelancers wish their editors would follow will resonate with some of you. Most of the editors I've worked with, I'm happy to say, already follow these "rules." But sure, there are some out there who could certainly use a few reminders.
Still dreaming of a charmed life as a travel writer? Read Tim Leffel's article on the myths of the profession. (via WrittenRoad.com)
==========
A few weeks ago I saw the remarkable new movie, Away from Her, which, as you may already know, is based on this short story by Alice Munro. (via the Kenyon Review blog)
==========
After you read the Munro story (or see the movie) you'll probably be grateful for a few laughs. This piece on "inventively annoying prose" fits the bill! (via Arts & Letters Daily)
==========
Maybe this post on rules freelancers wish their editors would follow will resonate with some of you. Most of the editors I've worked with, I'm happy to say, already follow these "rules." But sure, there are some out there who could certainly use a few reminders.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
From My Bookshelf: An Insider's Guide to Creative Writing Programs
This review originally appeared in the January 2007 issue of The Writer magazine.
Help for Choosing a Writing Program
An Insider's Guide to Creative Writing Programs: Choosing the Right MFA or MA Program, Colony, Residency, Grant, or Fellowship
by Amy Holman, Prentice-Hall Press/Penguin, 208 pages plus CD-ROM. Paperback, $18.95
Review by Erika Dreifus
If you're tired of Googling for online lists of MFA programs or writing grants or residencies, and if you're not interested in seeking separate print volumes dedicated to each of the same, Amy Holman's new book, An Insider's Guide to Creative Writing Programs will make you very happy. A published poet and literary consultant who indeed demonstrates an insider's knowledge of the field, Holman has assembled a no-nonsense guide to several key aspects of writers' professional development. Both beginners and more advanced writers should be grateful.
Holman defines "creative writing programs" broadly; she wants to "open your minds to possibilities you might have overlooked, thought were closed to you, or worried were too hard to pursue, and to change your mind about them." So she doesn't limit herself to academic (MA or MFA) programs in creative writing--although she profiles 60 such programs, including some administered through the popular low-residency option, in the book, and lists another 93 on the accompanying CD-ROM. She covers residencies, colonies, grants, and fellowships, too.
The book's first sections introduce you to this vocabulary and offer advice on "choosing the right program at the right time" and preparing an application. Holman provides the context, background and guidance for you to proceed on your own, because, as she rightly notes, "How you become encouraged about your writing ability, how you improve, hone, or perfect it depends largely on your personality and also on your personal engagement to the literary community to date." She wants to help you identify the "right environments" for your own development as a writer; she understands that that will be a personal process.
Program profiles fill most of the book. Those covering graduate schools (presented alphabetically, as Holman has wisely avoided ranking them) stand out for the way they highlight distinguishing features/program "perks" while following an economical and easy-to-follow template: For each program, Holman tells you what kind of degree it offers, a "nutshell" summary, a faculty list, and information on "defraying the cost." Non-academic program descriptions are similarly highly individualized. Holman also does the reader a favor by signaling when colonies or grants are truly open to early-career writers and when they’re really looking for very experienced, very published people. Holman complements the listings with informative quotations throughout.
Since Holman limited the number of profiles printed in the book (which keeps the text both readable and portable), one of An Insider’s Guide to Creative Writing Programs's selling points is its accompanying CD-ROM, “with listings and links for 300 programs.” This bonus sounds fantastic, and in many ways it is (especially in listing and linking programs located outside the United States). But take note of my experience:
*I could not initially access the promised searchable database on my Mac; when I tried the disc on a library PC, that problem seemed to disappear.
*The desktop left me confused. I didn’t know which file/icon to click; I would have appreciated a file labeled "Read me first." When I did find the database, I learned that I could search only one category at a time (type of program, state, or subject of program).
*Although I searched successfully for "low-residency MA programs," an attempt to identify "low-residency MFA programs" yielded what seemed to be a list of residency and low-residency programs combined.
*Similarly, the 300 promised programs are divided among multiple categories (Resident MA; Resident MFA; Low-Residency MFA; Low-Residency MA; Artist Colonies and Writers Colonies; Artist-in-Residence Programs in National Parks and Community; Academic Writer-in-Residence Programs; Grants and Fellowships; and Paid Writing Spaces). Holman provides an excellent introduction, but to identify additional programs you’ll still need to make use of other resources (including those helpfully linked in a "Resources" section).
*If you’re hoping that the CD-ROM will contain program descriptions similar to those Holman provides in the book, be forewarned that it offers program links only. In other words, you won’t find another 93 MA/MFA program descriptions there.
Those observations notwithstanding, Holman has done something exceedingly useful here. "No matter at what stage--beginning, emerging, or established--you are in your writing career, you have goals," Holman writes. An Insider’s Guide to Creative Writing Programs will help you meet them.
Help for Choosing a Writing Program
An Insider's Guide to Creative Writing Programs: Choosing the Right MFA or MA Program, Colony, Residency, Grant, or Fellowship
by Amy Holman, Prentice-Hall Press/Penguin, 208 pages plus CD-ROM. Paperback, $18.95
Review by Erika Dreifus
If you're tired of Googling for online lists of MFA programs or writing grants or residencies, and if you're not interested in seeking separate print volumes dedicated to each of the same, Amy Holman's new book, An Insider's Guide to Creative Writing Programs will make you very happy. A published poet and literary consultant who indeed demonstrates an insider's knowledge of the field, Holman has assembled a no-nonsense guide to several key aspects of writers' professional development. Both beginners and more advanced writers should be grateful.
Holman defines "creative writing programs" broadly; she wants to "open your minds to possibilities you might have overlooked, thought were closed to you, or worried were too hard to pursue, and to change your mind about them." So she doesn't limit herself to academic (MA or MFA) programs in creative writing--although she profiles 60 such programs, including some administered through the popular low-residency option, in the book, and lists another 93 on the accompanying CD-ROM. She covers residencies, colonies, grants, and fellowships, too.
The book's first sections introduce you to this vocabulary and offer advice on "choosing the right program at the right time" and preparing an application. Holman provides the context, background and guidance for you to proceed on your own, because, as she rightly notes, "How you become encouraged about your writing ability, how you improve, hone, or perfect it depends largely on your personality and also on your personal engagement to the literary community to date." She wants to help you identify the "right environments" for your own development as a writer; she understands that that will be a personal process.
Program profiles fill most of the book. Those covering graduate schools (presented alphabetically, as Holman has wisely avoided ranking them) stand out for the way they highlight distinguishing features/program "perks" while following an economical and easy-to-follow template: For each program, Holman tells you what kind of degree it offers, a "nutshell" summary, a faculty list, and information on "defraying the cost." Non-academic program descriptions are similarly highly individualized. Holman also does the reader a favor by signaling when colonies or grants are truly open to early-career writers and when they’re really looking for very experienced, very published people. Holman complements the listings with informative quotations throughout.
Since Holman limited the number of profiles printed in the book (which keeps the text both readable and portable), one of An Insider’s Guide to Creative Writing Programs's selling points is its accompanying CD-ROM, “with listings and links for 300 programs.” This bonus sounds fantastic, and in many ways it is (especially in listing and linking programs located outside the United States). But take note of my experience:
*I could not initially access the promised searchable database on my Mac; when I tried the disc on a library PC, that problem seemed to disappear.
*The desktop left me confused. I didn’t know which file/icon to click; I would have appreciated a file labeled "Read me first." When I did find the database, I learned that I could search only one category at a time (type of program, state, or subject of program).
*Although I searched successfully for "low-residency MA programs," an attempt to identify "low-residency MFA programs" yielded what seemed to be a list of residency and low-residency programs combined.
*Similarly, the 300 promised programs are divided among multiple categories (Resident MA; Resident MFA; Low-Residency MFA; Low-Residency MA; Artist Colonies and Writers Colonies; Artist-in-Residence Programs in National Parks and Community; Academic Writer-in-Residence Programs; Grants and Fellowships; and Paid Writing Spaces). Holman provides an excellent introduction, but to identify additional programs you’ll still need to make use of other resources (including those helpfully linked in a "Resources" section).
*If you’re hoping that the CD-ROM will contain program descriptions similar to those Holman provides in the book, be forewarned that it offers program links only. In other words, you won’t find another 93 MA/MFA program descriptions there.
Those observations notwithstanding, Holman has done something exceedingly useful here. "No matter at what stage--beginning, emerging, or established--you are in your writing career, you have goals," Holman writes. An Insider’s Guide to Creative Writing Programs will help you meet them.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Monday Morning Market Listings
Back from my brief trip, and pleased to present you with another round-up of Monday morning opportunities for your writing practice!
Toddler is a new parenting magazine, profiled here.
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WritersWeekly.com has upped its pay rates for its contributors. See new rates for freelance articles "on 'selling' the written word" and for freelance "success stories" here.
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I am an avid reader of Moment magazine (I was also lucky enough to have one of my stories reach finalist status in the magazine's annual short fiction contest a couple of years ago). So naturally I was intrigued by this craiglist posting for Moment's Writing Fellows program, which "prepares talented young journalists for a career in magazine journalism, providing them the opportunity to work for a year at Moment Magazine, an independent national magazine of Jewish politics, culture and religion co-founded by Elie Wiesel and based in Washington DC." Pays: $18,000 for a one-year fellowship (plus health insurance).
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"Notorious Press invites authors to submit short fiction to be considered for inclusion in the upcoming anthology HARDBOILED HORROR edited by James Van Pelt. General theme is that all stories will include elements of *both* the Horror and Mystery/Crime genres. This title will be a PoD trade paperback with a release date of early 2008. (Possibly first available at the World Horror Convention in March, 2008.)" Pays: $50/story. Submission deadline: September 30, 2007. Check full guidelines here.
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Milkweed Editions is developing a short fiction anthology to be published in fall 2008. "The editors hope to solicit work suggestive of the increasingly diverse and multicultural nature of Minnesota, and the volume's publication is timed to mark the sesquicentennial of the founding of the state." Looking for work from Minnesota residents only. Writers also "may not have had more than one previous book-length publication. Unpublished writers and writers of color are encouraged to submit manuscripts for consideration. All contributors will receive an honorarium of at least $500 (the final amount to be determined according to the number of contributors included)." Unpublished work only. Deadline: October 1, 2007. More information at Milkweed Editions. (via CRWROPPS)
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Teaching positions available at Northwestern State University (Natchitoches, LA) include an Assistant Professorship in English. "We seek a candidate with a specialization in Composition/Composition Studies. Ability to teach courses such at technical writing, document design, other business/professional writing courses, computers in composition, or other related areas in composition. Fiction writing background an asset. Record of high quality teaching at the university level, established research agenda and Ph.D. required; ABD candidates with scheduled defense dates will be considered." See the announcement at HigherEdJobs.com.
Toddler is a new parenting magazine, profiled here.
==========
WritersWeekly.com has upped its pay rates for its contributors. See new rates for freelance articles "on 'selling' the written word" and for freelance "success stories" here.
==========
I am an avid reader of Moment magazine (I was also lucky enough to have one of my stories reach finalist status in the magazine's annual short fiction contest a couple of years ago). So naturally I was intrigued by this craiglist posting for Moment's Writing Fellows program, which "prepares talented young journalists for a career in magazine journalism, providing them the opportunity to work for a year at Moment Magazine, an independent national magazine of Jewish politics, culture and religion co-founded by Elie Wiesel and based in Washington DC." Pays: $18,000 for a one-year fellowship (plus health insurance).
==========
"Notorious Press invites authors to submit short fiction to be considered for inclusion in the upcoming anthology HARDBOILED HORROR edited by James Van Pelt. General theme is that all stories will include elements of *both* the Horror and Mystery/Crime genres. This title will be a PoD trade paperback with a release date of early 2008. (Possibly first available at the World Horror Convention in March, 2008.)" Pays: $50/story. Submission deadline: September 30, 2007. Check full guidelines here.
==========
Milkweed Editions is developing a short fiction anthology to be published in fall 2008. "The editors hope to solicit work suggestive of the increasingly diverse and multicultural nature of Minnesota, and the volume's publication is timed to mark the sesquicentennial of the founding of the state." Looking for work from Minnesota residents only. Writers also "may not have had more than one previous book-length publication. Unpublished writers and writers of color are encouraged to submit manuscripts for consideration. All contributors will receive an honorarium of at least $500 (the final amount to be determined according to the number of contributors included)." Unpublished work only. Deadline: October 1, 2007. More information at Milkweed Editions. (via CRWROPPS)
==========
Teaching positions available at Northwestern State University (Natchitoches, LA) include an Assistant Professorship in English. "We seek a candidate with a specialization in Composition/Composition Studies. Ability to teach courses such at technical writing, document design, other business/professional writing courses, computers in composition, or other related areas in composition. Fiction writing background an asset. Record of high quality teaching at the university level, established research agenda and Ph.D. required; ABD candidates with scheduled defense dates will be considered." See the announcement at HigherEdJobs.com.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
(Very) Brief Hiatus
Hey, everyone, I'm taking off later today for a long weekend back in Boston. I won't be on e-mail/the Internet for awhile, so check back here on Monday for new posts. Have a great few days!
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Web Wanderings
Below, a few of the more intriguing finds I've collected through recent Web wanderings.
Since "Klezmer" is, in my view, one of Rick Chess's most powerful poems, I was more than just a little interested to read this essay explaining its genesis.
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I've had the good fortune to meet a number of talented and thoughtful writers since moving to New York this winter. Joshua Henkin is one of them (I'm also lucky to have already had the chance to read an advance copy of his new novel, Matrimony, which you can look forward to seeing in bookstores this fall). Meantime, if you're a fiction writer, and/or an MFA student, and/or a potential MFA student (and it wouldn't hurt MFA alums and/or faculty to pay attention, either), you must read Josh's posts here, here, and here.
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Remember when I told you that I had bought this novel? It turned out to be a decent enough read, but I must say the hype had made me expect something...more.
So I had to laugh when I read this not-so-rave review. I just I wish I'd found it earlier than last week.
Frankly, the novel's use of the first person plural, which evidently irritated the reviewer, bothered me less than did the "surprise" of discovering, a few pages from the end, that the story I'd just devoted so much time to following was--guess what?--the fictional creation of one of the characters. The first couple (of dozen) times I encountered that "trick" in other works of fiction it seemed very clever. I've even tried it myself once or twice. But at this point, it usually disappoints me.
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"Lost in Un-Translation" will guide you to a veritable wish list of books-to-be-translated.
Since "Klezmer" is, in my view, one of Rick Chess's most powerful poems, I was more than just a little interested to read this essay explaining its genesis.
==========
I've had the good fortune to meet a number of talented and thoughtful writers since moving to New York this winter. Joshua Henkin is one of them (I'm also lucky to have already had the chance to read an advance copy of his new novel, Matrimony, which you can look forward to seeing in bookstores this fall). Meantime, if you're a fiction writer, and/or an MFA student, and/or a potential MFA student (and it wouldn't hurt MFA alums and/or faculty to pay attention, either), you must read Josh's posts here, here, and here.
==========
Remember when I told you that I had bought this novel? It turned out to be a decent enough read, but I must say the hype had made me expect something...more.
So I had to laugh when I read this not-so-rave review. I just I wish I'd found it earlier than last week.
Frankly, the novel's use of the first person plural, which evidently irritated the reviewer, bothered me less than did the "surprise" of discovering, a few pages from the end, that the story I'd just devoted so much time to following was--guess what?--the fictional creation of one of the characters. The first couple (of dozen) times I encountered that "trick" in other works of fiction it seemed very clever. I've even tried it myself once or twice. But at this point, it usually disappoints me.
==========
"Lost in Un-Translation" will guide you to a veritable wish list of books-to-be-translated.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Writing for a Good Cause
On Saturday, June 9, I spent the day at the New York Writers Coalition 2nd Annual Write-A-Thon. Having raised $461 (raising a minimum of $100 was required, and here's a big public thank you to all my donors!) to support NYWC programs, I'd earned a ticket to a terrific day at the New York Center for Independent Publishing (previously the Small Press Center).Soon after I arrived, I entered a classroom for a writing workshop. I have to admit that it was strange--though by no means unpleasant--to find myself not in the role of the workshop leader this time! The actual leader, who regularly leads NYWC workshops, took us through two sets of prompts/exercises. In each case, after we'd finished 15-20 minutes of independent writing, we reconvened as a group. We had the option of reading our work aloud for the group's response. It all had to take place within the following guidelines:
1) You can ignore the writing suggestions and and write whatever you want to. You can also keep writing after the workshop leader calls people back to the group. This workshop is for you to use for your own writing however best it serves you.
2) We discourage 'observing' or 'auditing,' so we ask that you at least attempt to write something, or spend time thinking about writing, even if it's staring at a blank page, making notes, freewriting or doodling.
3) You don't have to read aloud what you just wrote. But if you do decide to share your work with the group, please only read what you wrote in this writing time, not something you brought in or wrote earlier in the Write-A-Thon.
4) Only say what you like and what you remember when you are talking about others' writing. The writing we are hearing is all brand new so it's too early in the writing process for critiques or suggestions. It's ok not to respond to every piece.
5) What is written here will be treated as fiction, and will be discussed that way. This means referring to the characters or the narrator of the piece rather than saying something like, 'I like the part where YOU ran away from home at age 12 after YOUR mother yelled at you.'
6) What is written here, and what is said here, is confidential.
After the workshop came lunch (sandwiches, pasta salad, and cookies). Because this was a writers' event, there was also plenty of coffee (and Diet Coke) available throughout the day.
At 1:30PM author Chris Baty gave us a "pep talk." I'd say it worked: I was pepped up sufficiently to decide--and I declare publicly right here and now--that I am going to sign up this year for his brainchild, National Novel Writing Month.
After the talk ended, I settled in with some stories-in-progress I'd brought along, and actually got some long-delayed revising done. That may not seem too impressive, but these days, any uninterrupted daylight attention I give my fiction is indeed precious.
There was something extremely inspiring about sharing the space, the time, and the occasion with so many other writers. There we sat in rooms throughout the building. Some people had brought laptops. Others, like me, scribbled away in notebooks. It may sound corny, but there really is something to be said from the momentum that comes from other people's writing (or typing) within view (or hearing).
The day definitely served me well. And I'm proud to have contributed to the work of the NYWC in the process. I'll be back!
Thanks to GalleyCat for letting me know about this event in the first place!
Monday, June 11, 2007
Monday Morning Listings
Good morning, everyone. Enjoy this set of listings!
Heal magazine, which launched in May to focus on issues and concerns of post-treatment cancer patients, is profiled here.
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Common Ties is currently looking for true stories about moral dilemmas. Deadline: June 19, 2007. Typically pays: $100-$200. Reprints considered. See the announcement here.
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CareParent, a new eldercare Web site, is looking for a full-time researcher/reporter, June-September, "with possibility of long-term continuation." Pays: $15-$20/hour; "stock possible for quality work." Check the announcement here.
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The Atlantic Monthly is currently accepting applications for its fall intership program for college juniors and seniors and "recent graduates of all ages." Click here for details and application instructions. Pays: $10/hour. Application deadline: July 11, 2007.
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"Atlanta magazine, the city’s only general-interest magazine and one of the oldest citymags in the country, is looking for writers to submit personal essays for the 'On My Mind' department. Writers may submit on any topic as long as it relates to the city/metropolis of Atlanta. (For a model, see Newsweek's regular 'My Turn' essay.) Repeat: The content absolutely must relate to the city of Atlanta. To be clear: This should not just be about you but also, somehow, about the CITY. The city cannot simply be a backdrop or mentioned as a drive-by but rather must be a factor, a presence in the piece -- better yet, its raison d'etre. It should tell us, the readers, something about this place where we live -- we should find something familiar, soothing, upsetting, true." Pays: "flat fee." Find out more here.
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The Art Bar Poetry Series (Toronto) is running a poetry contest (no entry fee). Invites one entry per person, of one poem up to 40 lines long. The poem "must contain the words 'art' and 'bar' in any order." Prizes: $250 (1st); $150 (2nd); $100 (3rd). I'm assuming these prizes will be awarded in Canadian funds. See the announcement for more information and submission instructions. Deadline: June 15, 2007. (via placesforwriters.com)
Heal magazine, which launched in May to focus on issues and concerns of post-treatment cancer patients, is profiled here.
==========
Common Ties is currently looking for true stories about moral dilemmas. Deadline: June 19, 2007. Typically pays: $100-$200. Reprints considered. See the announcement here.
==========
CareParent, a new eldercare Web site, is looking for a full-time researcher/reporter, June-September, "with possibility of long-term continuation." Pays: $15-$20/hour; "stock possible for quality work." Check the announcement here.
==========
The Atlantic Monthly is currently accepting applications for its fall intership program for college juniors and seniors and "recent graduates of all ages." Click here for details and application instructions. Pays: $10/hour. Application deadline: July 11, 2007.
==========
"Atlanta magazine, the city’s only general-interest magazine and one of the oldest citymags in the country, is looking for writers to submit personal essays for the 'On My Mind' department. Writers may submit on any topic as long as it relates to the city/metropolis of Atlanta. (For a model, see Newsweek's regular 'My Turn' essay.) Repeat: The content absolutely must relate to the city of Atlanta. To be clear: This should not just be about you but also, somehow, about the CITY. The city cannot simply be a backdrop or mentioned as a drive-by but rather must be a factor, a presence in the piece -- better yet, its raison d'etre. It should tell us, the readers, something about this place where we live -- we should find something familiar, soothing, upsetting, true." Pays: "flat fee." Find out more here.
==========
The Art Bar Poetry Series (Toronto) is running a poetry contest (no entry fee). Invites one entry per person, of one poem up to 40 lines long. The poem "must contain the words 'art' and 'bar' in any order." Prizes: $250 (1st); $150 (2nd); $100 (3rd). I'm assuming these prizes will be awarded in Canadian funds. See the announcement for more information and submission instructions. Deadline: June 15, 2007. (via placesforwriters.com)
Saturday, June 09, 2007
The Translator's Practice: An Interview with Brett Jocelyn Epstein
In keeping with the Web site changes mentioned here last week (and prompted by Dan Wickett's recent e-panel with literary translators), I'm happy to add from the archives this interview with practicing translator/writer Brett Jocelyn Epstein. The interview initially appeared in The Practicing Writer in November 2004; new/updated material will be indicated by italics.
The Translator's Practice: An Interview With Brett Jocelyn Epstein
by Erika Dreifus
This month The Practicing Writer considers an aspect of the craft and business of writing that many of us don't necessarily think about every day: translation. What does a translator do? What are the ties between writing and translation? And where can we learn more? In an interview with Erika Dreifus, Brett Jocelyn Epstein shares insights on these essential elements of the translator's craft and business.
Originally from Chicago, Brett lived in southern Sweden for more than five years, and moved to southern Wales last September. She is a Ph.D. student in translation studies, researching the translation of children's literature, and she works as a translator, writer, copy editor, and English teacher. She is the author of a textbook, Ready, Set, Teach: Creative Lessons for the Intermediate English Classroom. She was graduated from Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, with a BA in English and creative writing, and she received an MFA in fiction from Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina. Please visit her website and her blog for more information.
Erika Dreifus: Brett, can you briefly describe the job of a translator?
Brett Jocelyn Epstein: Translation is the art and craft of bringing an author's actual words, as well as his ideas, implications, moods, voice, style, and so forth, from the source language (the language to be translated from) to the target language (the language to be translated to), without being either overly literal and strict with the text or overly free and loose. A translator must consider what and how would the author have written this document if he were writing in the target language. So, translation is the delicate and formidable job of perfectly recreating the author's original document.
ED: What kinds of business opportunities are open to translators?
BJE: The great majority of translators support themselves with non-fiction work. My partner, Daniel Elander, and I mainly translate articles, websites,business documents, and menus from Swedish to English, though we've also worked with Danish. Translating legal documents, articles, reference works, textbooks, websites, and other such items unfortunately pays better and is much easier to get into than translating poetry, plays, or novels. I personally feel that translating creative work is more challenging and more interesting, but since only approximately two percent of all literature published in the United States is in translation (and the translations that do exist come primarily from Spanish, French, or German), it is clear that there is little work available for people who want to translate novels or poems. Most people who do this work don't do so because they want to make money (translating literature is far from lucrative), but rather because they are dedicated to literature and/or to the specific author or work and because they want the intellectual and creative challenge.
ED: In a recent article, you issued a call for more people to "join the ranks of translators." In what ways may practicing writers be particularly suited to the work of translating texts?
BJE: I really do think that writers are the ideal people to be translators. To translate a text, you must understand it fully and be able to basically rewrite it in a new language. Clearly, then, it helps if a translator has experience with writing, the writing process, analyzing literature, and editing. Certainly there are good translators out there who do not work on their own original writing and likewise there are good writers who don't have the patience for or interest in working with other people's documents,but in general, I believe translating and writing are worthy and compatible mates and I find both that reading, analyzing, and translating texts has benefited my own writing and also that writing stories and articles has helped me better understand the English language and how to translate into it.
ED: What works "on translating" would you recommend for anyone interested in learning more on the topic?
BJE: One of the best ways, I think, to learn about translation is to carefully read and study a document in both its original language and its translation. When I did this with Per Lagerkvist's The Dwarf, I spent a lot of time trying to understand what words and phrases really meant and why the translator had made certain choices and I compared this to what I would have done, had I been the translator. In fact, I realized that I was not satisfied at all with the English translation and I hope that one day soon a publishing company will decide to issue a new version of this novel. As for actual works on translation, I have particularly enjoyed and learned from Vladimir Nabokov's essay "The Art of Translation", William Weaver's essay "The Process of Translation" (which can be found in an interesting volume called The Craft of Translation, edited by John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte), and Performing Without a Stage: The Art of Literary Translation, by Robert Wechsler.
ED: Thank you, Brett!
(c) Copyright 2004 Erika Dreifus. All rights reserved.
Editor's Note: For a few examples of literary journals and magazines that do pay for translations, please click here.
The Translator's Practice: An Interview With Brett Jocelyn Epstein
by Erika Dreifus
This month The Practicing Writer considers an aspect of the craft and business of writing that many of us don't necessarily think about every day: translation. What does a translator do? What are the ties between writing and translation? And where can we learn more? In an interview with Erika Dreifus, Brett Jocelyn Epstein shares insights on these essential elements of the translator's craft and business.
Originally from Chicago, Brett lived in southern Sweden for more than five years, and moved to southern Wales last September. She is a Ph.D. student in translation studies, researching the translation of children's literature, and she works as a translator, writer, copy editor, and English teacher. She is the author of a textbook, Ready, Set, Teach: Creative Lessons for the Intermediate English Classroom. She was graduated from Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, with a BA in English and creative writing, and she received an MFA in fiction from Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina. Please visit her website and her blog for more information.
Erika Dreifus: Brett, can you briefly describe the job of a translator?
Brett Jocelyn Epstein: Translation is the art and craft of bringing an author's actual words, as well as his ideas, implications, moods, voice, style, and so forth, from the source language (the language to be translated from) to the target language (the language to be translated to), without being either overly literal and strict with the text or overly free and loose. A translator must consider what and how would the author have written this document if he were writing in the target language. So, translation is the delicate and formidable job of perfectly recreating the author's original document.
ED: What kinds of business opportunities are open to translators?
BJE: The great majority of translators support themselves with non-fiction work. My partner, Daniel Elander, and I mainly translate articles, websites,business documents, and menus from Swedish to English, though we've also worked with Danish. Translating legal documents, articles, reference works, textbooks, websites, and other such items unfortunately pays better and is much easier to get into than translating poetry, plays, or novels. I personally feel that translating creative work is more challenging and more interesting, but since only approximately two percent of all literature published in the United States is in translation (and the translations that do exist come primarily from Spanish, French, or German), it is clear that there is little work available for people who want to translate novels or poems. Most people who do this work don't do so because they want to make money (translating literature is far from lucrative), but rather because they are dedicated to literature and/or to the specific author or work and because they want the intellectual and creative challenge.
ED: In a recent article, you issued a call for more people to "join the ranks of translators." In what ways may practicing writers be particularly suited to the work of translating texts?
BJE: I really do think that writers are the ideal people to be translators. To translate a text, you must understand it fully and be able to basically rewrite it in a new language. Clearly, then, it helps if a translator has experience with writing, the writing process, analyzing literature, and editing. Certainly there are good translators out there who do not work on their own original writing and likewise there are good writers who don't have the patience for or interest in working with other people's documents,but in general, I believe translating and writing are worthy and compatible mates and I find both that reading, analyzing, and translating texts has benefited my own writing and also that writing stories and articles has helped me better understand the English language and how to translate into it.
ED: What works "on translating" would you recommend for anyone interested in learning more on the topic?
BJE: One of the best ways, I think, to learn about translation is to carefully read and study a document in both its original language and its translation. When I did this with Per Lagerkvist's The Dwarf, I spent a lot of time trying to understand what words and phrases really meant and why the translator had made certain choices and I compared this to what I would have done, had I been the translator. In fact, I realized that I was not satisfied at all with the English translation and I hope that one day soon a publishing company will decide to issue a new version of this novel. As for actual works on translation, I have particularly enjoyed and learned from Vladimir Nabokov's essay "The Art of Translation", William Weaver's essay "The Process of Translation" (which can be found in an interesting volume called The Craft of Translation, edited by John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte), and Performing Without a Stage: The Art of Literary Translation, by Robert Wechsler.
ED: Thank you, Brett!
(c) Copyright 2004 Erika Dreifus. All rights reserved.
Editor's Note: For a few examples of literary journals and magazines that do pay for translations, please click here.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Friday Find: Off the Shelf
I haven't yet taken the time to introduce "Off the Shelf," a blog from the Boston Globe that I recently added to the links on the side of this page. It's a great resource for writers and readers in the Boston area, since it includes updated listings of local author appearances. And it's a great resource for anyone like me, recently transplanted from Beantown, who misses reading familiar names like David Mehegan and Jan Gardner on matters book-related. It even has some features I haven't yet explored (such as a discussion board).
Thursday, June 07, 2007
From Erika's Archive: On Writing, Publishing, and Literary Contests: An Interview with Ronna Wineberg
(A version of this interview originally appeared in The Practicing Writer, January 2006.)
On Writing, Publishing, and Literary Contests: An Interview with Ronna Wineberg
by Erika Dreifus
Ronna Wineberg was born in Chicago and educated at the University of Michigan and the University of Denver College of Law. Her collection of short stories, Second Language, won the New Rivers Press MVP Literary Competition and was published by New Rivers Press in October 2005. The book has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Wineberg was a 2004 fellow in Fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Since 2000, she has been the fiction editor of the Bellevue Literary Review. Wineberg has been awarded residencies to the Ragdale Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and has taught writing at New York University. She has also been a public defender and had a private law practice. She lives in New York with her husband and children.
Erika Dreifus: Ronna, thanks so much for taking the time to "talk" with us. I know it's been a busy time for you. Let's start with some background. Please tell us a bit about your development as a fiction writer. Did you ever consider the MFA route? Why or why not?
Ronna Wineberg: First, it's a pleasure to be interviewed by you, Erika. Thank you for asking such excellent questions. They helped me review what I've done with my writing and why.
I followed a circuitous path to becoming a writer. I didn't consider the MFA route when I graduated from college. I went to law school because I wanted to do something practical and help underserved and poor clients. I worked for Colorado Rural Legal Services, as a public defender, and had a private practice. But I was always interested in writing. When I was a public defender, I wrote stories and poems while I sat in court, waiting for a case to be called. I stayed late at the office writing. I lived in Denver at the time, and one summer, I attended the Aspen Writers Conference. My instructor, Kathleen Spivak, was encouraging. She suggested I take a writing class and recommended the University of Denver.
I talked to a professor there who allowed me to enroll in a fiction writing class in the MFA program, but not for credit. I loved what I learned, and enjoyed the interactions with other students, reading their work. I took another class. I became more serious about writing fiction and became a member of a writers group. I had a simple goal at first--to learn to write a story that worked, that conveyed emotion. This was harder to do than I imagined. I wrote story after story. I decided that I wanted to pursue an MFA I talked to someone at DU about being admitted to the program and was told I needed to take the GRE exam first. I made plans to do this, but then my husband was offered a job at Vanderbilt University. We moved to Nashville.
There was no MFA program at Vanderbilt then. I considered applying to a low residency program. But this seemed too great an undertaking at the time; my three children were young. So instead, I tried to construct a writing life. I attended conferences, Sewanee and Bread Loaf. I joined a writers group in Nashville. Some of the members had published books; I learned from them. I continued my connection with writers and mentors I had known in Denver. I read short stories. And I wrote.
ED: For those who haven't yet read it, Second Language includes 13 stories, most of which were previously published in literary journals/magazines. Many short story writers (and poets and essayists, for that matter) are advised to publish their work in journals before trying to publish a collection. What's your take on this, and what advice can you offer about publishing individual pieces?
RW: I would strongly advise a writer to publish short stories in journals first, or to publish in journals even as the writer is looking for a publisher for a collection. It can take a long time to find a publisher for a book, years and years. It can be a discouraging process. Short story collections are hard to place.
Journals provide a venue for your work, and publication there can boost a writer's morale. It's a great feeling to have individual stories published (or poems or essays). This gives you a chance to have success along the way, to be visible as a writer, to have readers, and become part of a wider writing community. Sometimes journal editors will offer suggestions for revision. Also, when you publish in journals, you're building a list of publications that you can mention in a cover letter to an agent or editor. And agents and editors read journals; one might like your work and contact you.
In terms of suggestions for publishing individual stories, my advice is probably similar to what other writers have said. First, be persistent. The rejections are hard. But the best way to deal with them is with persistence. If a writer receives a rejection with a comment, that's encouraging. Editors receive enormous amounts of submissions and give comments only when they are impressed with the writing. Send the story out again. Send another story to that same editor. I found that, on occasion, I developed a relationship with editors. Sometimes two or three stories were rejected, and the editor accepted the next story.
Also, make informed choices about where to send work. Read a journal before submitting to get a sense of what the journal is looking for, themes or styles. See how you like the work in the journal. Be realistic. If you submit to the New Yorker or a famous literary journal, your chance for publication is extremely slim. Start with smaller, well-respected journals that are open to new and emerging writers.
Third, be systematic. Keep a notebook or computer file with information: name of story, what journal and editor it was sent to, the date, the date and content of response. Ideally, the week you receive a rejection, send the story out again. An editor may reject a story because of the needs of a particular issue. I've seen this with the Bellevue Literary Review. We have rejected pieces reluctantly because we had too many on the same theme or dealt with the theme in the previous issue.
Follow the journal's guidelines. Be sure your manuscript is neat, double spaced, without typos, grammatical or spelling errors. Write a simple cover letter, listing where you've published (if you have), if you have an MFA or anything you feel is pertinent. But keep the letter fairly short. I would advise against giving a long description of the story in the letter. Let the work speak for itself. Be sure to enclose an SASE if you submit via regular mail.
Don't submit a story until you feel confident it's finished and ready to be sent out. This can be hard to judge, though.
If an editor offers suggestion for revision, consider the comments carefully, but revise only if the suggestions seem accurate to you. You'll most likely want to revise (if the comments are helpful) if the editor makes a commitment to publish or says he or she will take another serious look at the revised story.
And last, the writer needs to consider whether he or she wants to submit work simultaneously, to more than one journal at a time.
ED: Second Language has been published by New Rivers Press through its MVP competition. The book's closing story, "The Doctor," was published in The Licking River Review and was also a finalist in two prestigious competitions. An earlier version of the book was a finalist for the Willa Cather Prize from Helicon Nine Editions. So submitting your work to contests, as well as to literary journals, has clearly formed part of your writing/publishing experience. In an e-mail, you commented: "I'm a believer in contests as long as a writer has patience and realistic expectations (as with all of writing)." Can you explain a little more about your approach to literary contests and competitions, and share any tips you may have for other writers?
RW: I am a believer in contests. However, I try to approach contests realistically. On the one hand, there is just one winner and a few finalists, so the chance of success is much less than if a writer sends to a journal. However, if you are fortunate to be a finalist or winner, it's a great honor. One of my teachers suggested I send my story collection to contests since collections are so hard to place with publishers. Often, the prize of a competition is publication of a book. I researched what contests existed for short stories, and decided to submit the manuscript to some competitions.
I came to value contests early on. I was fortunate that one of the first stories I wrote, "The Feather Pillow," won a prize in a local contest, the Denver Woman's Press Club Adult Short Story Contest. There was a monetary award, though no publication. I was thrilled and grateful for the affirmation.
I've entered a few individual stories, like "The Doctor", in a contest because I've believed in a story, felt it was a strong piece of work. When Second Language was chosen a Finalist for the Willa Cather Award, this strengthened my belief that someday the collection would be published.
In terms of tips, I'd suggest researching what contests are suitable for a writer's work. There are lots of contests--for story collections, for novels about social justice, for writers who have never published books, writers who have already published books.
Local contests are a good place to start. There are also contests limited to writers who live in specific geographic areas. Find what best reflects your work. Preparing a manuscript for a competition, either a single story or a collection, is a good way to push the work to another level, make it more professional.
In addition, when entering a contest: 1. Follow guidelines and honor deadlines. 2. Consider cost. Some contests have no entry fee, which is very appealing. It can become expensive to enter a lot of contests, so choose carefully. And choose carefully what work you submit. 3. Consider past winners--are they well-known writers or ones at earlier stages in a career? 4. Once you enter the contest, forget about it, and go to your desk and work on current projects. You'll eventually hear the results. 5. Keep a record of where you've sent your work.
ED: Rosellen Brown has described the "second language" of these stories as "desire...an unrealized longing, a secret unearthed, a passion suppressed or--unexpectedly--yielded to. The situations of Ronna Wineberg's characters are diverse, but they circle one inescapable theme with flawless emotional accuracy: that few are fulfilled, and even fewer will live out their lives without at least trying, bravely, to make a break for it." This is very powerful stuff (and, as a reader, I find it wholly accurate). To what extent were you aware, in crafting the stories, of this essential quality?
RW: I was surprised and very flattered by Rosellen Brown's description. However, when I wrote the stories, I wasn't aware of these themes. But as I thought about her words, I realized she was right.
I wrote one story at a time about what interested me at the moment. I didn't have a theme for the book. The themes evolved intuitively. So I'm glad the book seems to work thematically.
ED: Several stories in the collection portray (or at least allude to) experiences of illness and healing (of the main characters or someone close to them). A number of stories also feature physician characters (in "A Crossing," the protagonist is a pediatrician facing her own life-threatening illness). Tell us how your interests as a fiction writer have contributed to your editorial work for Bellevue Literary Review, a literary journal published by the Department of Medicine at New York University, and how your experiences as an editor have influenced your own writing?
RW: Before I became associated with the Bellevue Literary Review I was interested in health and healing. I have always believed that medicine in its purest incarnation is a noble profession. I admire its power to heal, but I am also aware of the tension between its promise and its limitations. Writing about illness and doctors allowed me to experience the profession vicariously. That's what one can do in fiction--live different lives.
Being an editor has influenced my work. I learn from the fiction I read for the journal--about technique, what works and what doesn't, about language, voice, point of view. I've tried to be objective about my own work and use my editing skills on it. But I think it's easier to edit someone else's work. I've also learned about how a journal functions and have seen first-hand the enormous numbers of submissions.
ED: Please tell us about the process you went through structuring the collection, choosing and sequencing the stories, and so on.
RW: I compiled different versions of the story collection, at first experimenting with titles. After I had the title, I continued to debate which stories to include. The process was like putting together a puzzle. I shuffled stories, adding some, taking out others, experimenting with the arrangement.
When I wrote a new story I felt was stronger, I included it and removed a weaker one. The manuscript I sent to the Willa Cather competition was titled Second Language, but it didn't include all the stories that are part of the book.
After the manuscript won the New Rivers MVP competition, my editor at New Rivers Press suggested that I consider putting fewer stories in the collection and change the arrangement. He left it up to me whether to make the changes. I had worked so hard on the sequence already and was reluctant at first to make a change. But when I looked at the stories again, I realized he was right. I saw which stories could go.
I decided to put what I considered a strong story first and last, beginning with a story that touched on what I saw as the book's themes. I wanted the sequence of stories to have a logic to it, although I knew that readers do not necessarily read a collection in the order, but jump around. Once I started rearranging, the new sequence became apparent to me. I hope it worked!
ED: Anything else you'd like to tell us?
RW: Thank you again, Erika, for interviewing me. It's wonderful to "talk" to you and your readers, an honor and privilege.
ED: Thank you, Ronna.
Second Language
by Ronna Wineberg
Many Voices Project/New Rivers Press, 2005
250 pages, Paper, $14.95.
(c) Copyright 2005-2008 Erika Dreifus
On Writing, Publishing, and Literary Contests: An Interview with Ronna Wineberg
by Erika Dreifus
Ronna Wineberg was born in Chicago and educated at the University of Michigan and the University of Denver College of Law. Her collection of short stories, Second Language, won the New Rivers Press MVP Literary Competition and was published by New Rivers Press in October 2005. The book has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Wineberg was a 2004 fellow in Fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Since 2000, she has been the fiction editor of the Bellevue Literary Review. Wineberg has been awarded residencies to the Ragdale Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and has taught writing at New York University. She has also been a public defender and had a private law practice. She lives in New York with her husband and children.
Erika Dreifus: Ronna, thanks so much for taking the time to "talk" with us. I know it's been a busy time for you. Let's start with some background. Please tell us a bit about your development as a fiction writer. Did you ever consider the MFA route? Why or why not?
Ronna Wineberg: First, it's a pleasure to be interviewed by you, Erika. Thank you for asking such excellent questions. They helped me review what I've done with my writing and why.
I followed a circuitous path to becoming a writer. I didn't consider the MFA route when I graduated from college. I went to law school because I wanted to do something practical and help underserved and poor clients. I worked for Colorado Rural Legal Services, as a public defender, and had a private practice. But I was always interested in writing. When I was a public defender, I wrote stories and poems while I sat in court, waiting for a case to be called. I stayed late at the office writing. I lived in Denver at the time, and one summer, I attended the Aspen Writers Conference. My instructor, Kathleen Spivak, was encouraging. She suggested I take a writing class and recommended the University of Denver.
I talked to a professor there who allowed me to enroll in a fiction writing class in the MFA program, but not for credit. I loved what I learned, and enjoyed the interactions with other students, reading their work. I took another class. I became more serious about writing fiction and became a member of a writers group. I had a simple goal at first--to learn to write a story that worked, that conveyed emotion. This was harder to do than I imagined. I wrote story after story. I decided that I wanted to pursue an MFA I talked to someone at DU about being admitted to the program and was told I needed to take the GRE exam first. I made plans to do this, but then my husband was offered a job at Vanderbilt University. We moved to Nashville.
There was no MFA program at Vanderbilt then. I considered applying to a low residency program. But this seemed too great an undertaking at the time; my three children were young. So instead, I tried to construct a writing life. I attended conferences, Sewanee and Bread Loaf. I joined a writers group in Nashville. Some of the members had published books; I learned from them. I continued my connection with writers and mentors I had known in Denver. I read short stories. And I wrote.
ED: For those who haven't yet read it, Second Language includes 13 stories, most of which were previously published in literary journals/magazines. Many short story writers (and poets and essayists, for that matter) are advised to publish their work in journals before trying to publish a collection. What's your take on this, and what advice can you offer about publishing individual pieces?
RW: I would strongly advise a writer to publish short stories in journals first, or to publish in journals even as the writer is looking for a publisher for a collection. It can take a long time to find a publisher for a book, years and years. It can be a discouraging process. Short story collections are hard to place.
Journals provide a venue for your work, and publication there can boost a writer's morale. It's a great feeling to have individual stories published (or poems or essays). This gives you a chance to have success along the way, to be visible as a writer, to have readers, and become part of a wider writing community. Sometimes journal editors will offer suggestions for revision. Also, when you publish in journals, you're building a list of publications that you can mention in a cover letter to an agent or editor. And agents and editors read journals; one might like your work and contact you.
In terms of suggestions for publishing individual stories, my advice is probably similar to what other writers have said. First, be persistent. The rejections are hard. But the best way to deal with them is with persistence. If a writer receives a rejection with a comment, that's encouraging. Editors receive enormous amounts of submissions and give comments only when they are impressed with the writing. Send the story out again. Send another story to that same editor. I found that, on occasion, I developed a relationship with editors. Sometimes two or three stories were rejected, and the editor accepted the next story.
Also, make informed choices about where to send work. Read a journal before submitting to get a sense of what the journal is looking for, themes or styles. See how you like the work in the journal. Be realistic. If you submit to the New Yorker or a famous literary journal, your chance for publication is extremely slim. Start with smaller, well-respected journals that are open to new and emerging writers.
Third, be systematic. Keep a notebook or computer file with information: name of story, what journal and editor it was sent to, the date, the date and content of response. Ideally, the week you receive a rejection, send the story out again. An editor may reject a story because of the needs of a particular issue. I've seen this with the Bellevue Literary Review. We have rejected pieces reluctantly because we had too many on the same theme or dealt with the theme in the previous issue.
Follow the journal's guidelines. Be sure your manuscript is neat, double spaced, without typos, grammatical or spelling errors. Write a simple cover letter, listing where you've published (if you have), if you have an MFA or anything you feel is pertinent. But keep the letter fairly short. I would advise against giving a long description of the story in the letter. Let the work speak for itself. Be sure to enclose an SASE if you submit via regular mail.
Don't submit a story until you feel confident it's finished and ready to be sent out. This can be hard to judge, though.
If an editor offers suggestion for revision, consider the comments carefully, but revise only if the suggestions seem accurate to you. You'll most likely want to revise (if the comments are helpful) if the editor makes a commitment to publish or says he or she will take another serious look at the revised story.
And last, the writer needs to consider whether he or she wants to submit work simultaneously, to more than one journal at a time.
ED: Second Language has been published by New Rivers Press through its MVP competition. The book's closing story, "The Doctor," was published in The Licking River Review and was also a finalist in two prestigious competitions. An earlier version of the book was a finalist for the Willa Cather Prize from Helicon Nine Editions. So submitting your work to contests, as well as to literary journals, has clearly formed part of your writing/publishing experience. In an e-mail, you commented: "I'm a believer in contests as long as a writer has patience and realistic expectations (as with all of writing)." Can you explain a little more about your approach to literary contests and competitions, and share any tips you may have for other writers?
RW: I am a believer in contests. However, I try to approach contests realistically. On the one hand, there is just one winner and a few finalists, so the chance of success is much less than if a writer sends to a journal. However, if you are fortunate to be a finalist or winner, it's a great honor. One of my teachers suggested I send my story collection to contests since collections are so hard to place with publishers. Often, the prize of a competition is publication of a book. I researched what contests existed for short stories, and decided to submit the manuscript to some competitions.
I came to value contests early on. I was fortunate that one of the first stories I wrote, "The Feather Pillow," won a prize in a local contest, the Denver Woman's Press Club Adult Short Story Contest. There was a monetary award, though no publication. I was thrilled and grateful for the affirmation.
I've entered a few individual stories, like "The Doctor", in a contest because I've believed in a story, felt it was a strong piece of work. When Second Language was chosen a Finalist for the Willa Cather Award, this strengthened my belief that someday the collection would be published.
In terms of tips, I'd suggest researching what contests are suitable for a writer's work. There are lots of contests--for story collections, for novels about social justice, for writers who have never published books, writers who have already published books.
Local contests are a good place to start. There are also contests limited to writers who live in specific geographic areas. Find what best reflects your work. Preparing a manuscript for a competition, either a single story or a collection, is a good way to push the work to another level, make it more professional.
In addition, when entering a contest: 1. Follow guidelines and honor deadlines. 2. Consider cost. Some contests have no entry fee, which is very appealing. It can become expensive to enter a lot of contests, so choose carefully. And choose carefully what work you submit. 3. Consider past winners--are they well-known writers or ones at earlier stages in a career? 4. Once you enter the contest, forget about it, and go to your desk and work on current projects. You'll eventually hear the results. 5. Keep a record of where you've sent your work.
ED: Rosellen Brown has described the "second language" of these stories as "desire...an unrealized longing, a secret unearthed, a passion suppressed or--unexpectedly--yielded to. The situations of Ronna Wineberg's characters are diverse, but they circle one inescapable theme with flawless emotional accuracy: that few are fulfilled, and even fewer will live out their lives without at least trying, bravely, to make a break for it." This is very powerful stuff (and, as a reader, I find it wholly accurate). To what extent were you aware, in crafting the stories, of this essential quality?
RW: I was surprised and very flattered by Rosellen Brown's description. However, when I wrote the stories, I wasn't aware of these themes. But as I thought about her words, I realized she was right.
I wrote one story at a time about what interested me at the moment. I didn't have a theme for the book. The themes evolved intuitively. So I'm glad the book seems to work thematically.
ED: Several stories in the collection portray (or at least allude to) experiences of illness and healing (of the main characters or someone close to them). A number of stories also feature physician characters (in "A Crossing," the protagonist is a pediatrician facing her own life-threatening illness). Tell us how your interests as a fiction writer have contributed to your editorial work for Bellevue Literary Review, a literary journal published by the Department of Medicine at New York University, and how your experiences as an editor have influenced your own writing?
RW: Before I became associated with the Bellevue Literary Review I was interested in health and healing. I have always believed that medicine in its purest incarnation is a noble profession. I admire its power to heal, but I am also aware of the tension between its promise and its limitations. Writing about illness and doctors allowed me to experience the profession vicariously. That's what one can do in fiction--live different lives.
Being an editor has influenced my work. I learn from the fiction I read for the journal--about technique, what works and what doesn't, about language, voice, point of view. I've tried to be objective about my own work and use my editing skills on it. But I think it's easier to edit someone else's work. I've also learned about how a journal functions and have seen first-hand the enormous numbers of submissions.
ED: Please tell us about the process you went through structuring the collection, choosing and sequencing the stories, and so on.
RW: I compiled different versions of the story collection, at first experimenting with titles. After I had the title, I continued to debate which stories to include. The process was like putting together a puzzle. I shuffled stories, adding some, taking out others, experimenting with the arrangement.
When I wrote a new story I felt was stronger, I included it and removed a weaker one. The manuscript I sent to the Willa Cather competition was titled Second Language, but it didn't include all the stories that are part of the book.
After the manuscript won the New Rivers MVP competition, my editor at New Rivers Press suggested that I consider putting fewer stories in the collection and change the arrangement. He left it up to me whether to make the changes. I had worked so hard on the sequence already and was reluctant at first to make a change. But when I looked at the stories again, I realized he was right. I saw which stories could go.
I decided to put what I considered a strong story first and last, beginning with a story that touched on what I saw as the book's themes. I wanted the sequence of stories to have a logic to it, although I knew that readers do not necessarily read a collection in the order, but jump around. Once I started rearranging, the new sequence became apparent to me. I hope it worked!
ED: Anything else you'd like to tell us?
RW: Thank you again, Erika, for interviewing me. It's wonderful to "talk" to you and your readers, an honor and privilege.
ED: Thank you, Ronna.
Second Language
by Ronna Wineberg
Many Voices Project/New Rivers Press, 2005
250 pages, Paper, $14.95.
(c) Copyright 2005-2008 Erika Dreifus
Options for Book Reviews and Book Reviewers
For those of you who may have missed it the first time, here's my feature article from the June 2007 issue of The Practicing Writer.
OPTIONS FOR BOOK REVIEWS AND BOOK REVIEWERS
I love newspapers. As someone who was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised there and in nearby New Jersey, I often feel as though I grew up with The New York Times. I certainly remained attached enough to the Times to maintain a subscription while also subscribing to The Washington Post when I lived in DC and to the Globe for the many years I lived in the Boston area. I'll confess that I've never had occasion to read or subscribe to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), so I've had no legitimate reason to add my signature to the petition you may have heard about recently, asking the AJC to maintain its stand-alone book section--and to keep it under a specific longtime editor's control.
Newspapers have been facing struggles for quite awhile now. And book sections aren't isolated in their suffering. Sure, I've had editors responsible for book coverage tell me they couldn't take a review pitch because space was too tight. But other section editors have said exactly the same thing, responding to other article queries. Sometimes my accepted work has been delayed (and delayed) before finally being published thanks, I've been told, to those very same space constraints.
But rumors of the demise of the book review are, I think, at least somewhat exaggerated. I'm not ready to buy into the gloom and doom scenario quite yet. For one thing, I don't believe that all the new strategies newspapers are trying--like combining book coverage with opinion writing and/or other arts and culture writing--are quite so catastrophic as some people have suggested. I don't remember how many years ago the Globe created a hybrid "Ideas" section for Sundays; I think we all weathered that change pretty well. After all, some of us believe that ideas rest at the heart of the very best books; it's a natural combination.
Maybe I'm also not quite so demoralized by shrinking book review pages in certain Sunday newspapers because, frankly, I uncover a lot of good book coverage elsewhere. As a reader--and as a book reviewer--I find encouragement and inspiration in the many magazines, literary journals, Web sites, and various "niche" publications that also provide good discussion of books, authors, and writing. Beyond that, I frequently see books reviewed and authors profiled in "other" newspaper sections (think about travel-related books you've seen covered in travel sections, food-related titles in food/dining sections, and so on).
But what if you're an aspiring or veteran book reviewer who has been alarmed enough by the recent coverage of the need to "save the book review" to believe that the end is, in fact, dangerously near? Where can you look?
Let's take two examples. Let's consider two new books and think about their possible coverage outside Sunday newspaper book reviews.
This month Random House will release Connie Schultz's ...and His Lovely Wife: A Memoir from the Woman Beside the Man. Schultz, who won a 2005 Pulitzer for Commentary, is married to the junior United States Senator from Ohio, Sherrod Brown. The book is essentially her memoir of Brown's most recent campaign.
Now, maybe the Atlanta Journal-Constitution will no longer be able to review this book. And quite possibly Schultz's own paper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, shouldn't. So where else might you reasonably expect to find the book discussed/reviewed?
I'd look to regional magazines (in this case, those focusing on Ohio). Or Schultz's alumni magazine (she's a 1979 graduate of Kent State University). Or magazines or Web sites that focus on American politics.
I'd also think about venues especially interested in promoting women's writing, and/or interested in issues relating to marriage and family. And let's not forget that given Schultz's journalistic accomplishments and prominence, "trade" publications (American Journalism Review, for starters) might be relevant, too.
Are you starting to see the possibilities?
Now let's turn to the second example. If you read my blog regularly, you know there's a new poetry book at the top of my to-be-read stack right now. Third Temple (University of Tampa Press) is the latest volume by Richard Chess, who is both a creative writing professor and director of the Jewish Studies program at the University of North Carolina-Asheville.
Since both print and online literary journals can be particularly hospitable to poetry reviews, I'll hope to see Third Temple reviewed widely in such venues. Thinking regionally again, I'll hope that publications in North Carolina will cover it. And given the particularly Jewish content of these poems, I'll also hope to see magazines, newspapers, and Web sites that focus on Jewish themes and subjects featuring this new book (for just a few examples: Nextbook.org, JBooks.com, and The Forward).
So no matter what you're hearing, don't succumb to despair quite yet. You can still do your part to sustain serious thinking and reading and writing about books, even if you have to do it outside the Sunday newspaper book review sections. You may have to think a little more creatively, and do a little more research. But if you really want to read about books, and write about them, and expand others' literary awareness, you still can.
(c) 2007 Erika Dreifus
Erika Dreifus, author of The Practicing Writer's Directory of Paying Markets for Book Reviewers, has published dozens of book reviews in venues as varied as the Boston Globe Sunday travel section, the Christian Science Monitor, Community College Week, JBooks.com, The Missouri Review, Our State, The Writer magazine, and The Chattahoochee Review, where she is a contributing editor.
OPTIONS FOR BOOK REVIEWS AND BOOK REVIEWERS
I love newspapers. As someone who was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised there and in nearby New Jersey, I often feel as though I grew up with The New York Times. I certainly remained attached enough to the Times to maintain a subscription while also subscribing to The Washington Post when I lived in DC and to the Globe for the many years I lived in the Boston area. I'll confess that I've never had occasion to read or subscribe to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), so I've had no legitimate reason to add my signature to the petition you may have heard about recently, asking the AJC to maintain its stand-alone book section--and to keep it under a specific longtime editor's control.
Newspapers have been facing struggles for quite awhile now. And book sections aren't isolated in their suffering. Sure, I've had editors responsible for book coverage tell me they couldn't take a review pitch because space was too tight. But other section editors have said exactly the same thing, responding to other article queries. Sometimes my accepted work has been delayed (and delayed) before finally being published thanks, I've been told, to those very same space constraints.
But rumors of the demise of the book review are, I think, at least somewhat exaggerated. I'm not ready to buy into the gloom and doom scenario quite yet. For one thing, I don't believe that all the new strategies newspapers are trying--like combining book coverage with opinion writing and/or other arts and culture writing--are quite so catastrophic as some people have suggested. I don't remember how many years ago the Globe created a hybrid "Ideas" section for Sundays; I think we all weathered that change pretty well. After all, some of us believe that ideas rest at the heart of the very best books; it's a natural combination.
Maybe I'm also not quite so demoralized by shrinking book review pages in certain Sunday newspapers because, frankly, I uncover a lot of good book coverage elsewhere. As a reader--and as a book reviewer--I find encouragement and inspiration in the many magazines, literary journals, Web sites, and various "niche" publications that also provide good discussion of books, authors, and writing. Beyond that, I frequently see books reviewed and authors profiled in "other" newspaper sections (think about travel-related books you've seen covered in travel sections, food-related titles in food/dining sections, and so on).
But what if you're an aspiring or veteran book reviewer who has been alarmed enough by the recent coverage of the need to "save the book review" to believe that the end is, in fact, dangerously near? Where can you look?
Let's take two examples. Let's consider two new books and think about their possible coverage outside Sunday newspaper book reviews.
This month Random House will release Connie Schultz's ...and His Lovely Wife: A Memoir from the Woman Beside the Man. Schultz, who won a 2005 Pulitzer for Commentary, is married to the junior United States Senator from Ohio, Sherrod Brown. The book is essentially her memoir of Brown's most recent campaign.
Now, maybe the Atlanta Journal-Constitution will no longer be able to review this book. And quite possibly Schultz's own paper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, shouldn't. So where else might you reasonably expect to find the book discussed/reviewed?
I'd look to regional magazines (in this case, those focusing on Ohio). Or Schultz's alumni magazine (she's a 1979 graduate of Kent State University). Or magazines or Web sites that focus on American politics.
I'd also think about venues especially interested in promoting women's writing, and/or interested in issues relating to marriage and family. And let's not forget that given Schultz's journalistic accomplishments and prominence, "trade" publications (American Journalism Review, for starters) might be relevant, too.
Are you starting to see the possibilities?
Now let's turn to the second example. If you read my blog regularly, you know there's a new poetry book at the top of my to-be-read stack right now. Third Temple (University of Tampa Press) is the latest volume by Richard Chess, who is both a creative writing professor and director of the Jewish Studies program at the University of North Carolina-Asheville.
Since both print and online literary journals can be particularly hospitable to poetry reviews, I'll hope to see Third Temple reviewed widely in such venues. Thinking regionally again, I'll hope that publications in North Carolina will cover it. And given the particularly Jewish content of these poems, I'll also hope to see magazines, newspapers, and Web sites that focus on Jewish themes and subjects featuring this new book (for just a few examples: Nextbook.org, JBooks.com, and The Forward).
So no matter what you're hearing, don't succumb to despair quite yet. You can still do your part to sustain serious thinking and reading and writing about books, even if you have to do it outside the Sunday newspaper book review sections. You may have to think a little more creatively, and do a little more research. But if you really want to read about books, and write about them, and expand others' literary awareness, you still can.
(c) 2007 Erika Dreifus
Erika Dreifus, author of The Practicing Writer's Directory of Paying Markets for Book Reviewers, has published dozens of book reviews in venues as varied as the Boston Globe Sunday travel section, the Christian Science Monitor, Community College Week, JBooks.com, The Missouri Review, Our State, The Writer magazine, and The Chattahoochee Review, where she is a contributing editor.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
When Anton Chekhov Talks...
When Anton Chekhov talks, all fiction writers should listen. This week, Chip Scanlan revisits the writing advice the master offered in his private letters. (I've always particularly liked that tip about ridding one's writing of adjectives and adverbs.)
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Web Wanderings
A few things that have caught my attention as I've wandered the Web in recent days:
An interesting discussion thread on the Poets & Writers Speakeasy on short fiction collections (free registration required) led me to this Washington Post article.
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Found this take on "9/11 fiction" in the Guardian Review.
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For a supposedly dying art (as some would have us believe) there sure is a lot being written about book reviewing right now, including this piece on "the novelist as critic" on the Guardian's Books Blog.
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On a related note, I'm still trying to figure out what I think about the books cited by a group of "famous" writers when the New York Times Book Review asked them to name the "books they've enjoyed the most over the last few months," and to explain the reasoning behind their choices. Mainly, I'm mulling over why I share their enthusiasms for certain titles, but not others. And I'm trying to decide which of the mentioned books I haven't yet read I'll place on my TBR list.
An interesting discussion thread on the Poets & Writers Speakeasy on short fiction collections (free registration required) led me to this Washington Post article.
==========
Found this take on "9/11 fiction" in the Guardian Review.
==========
For a supposedly dying art (as some would have us believe) there sure is a lot being written about book reviewing right now, including this piece on "the novelist as critic" on the Guardian's Books Blog.
==========
On a related note, I'm still trying to figure out what I think about the books cited by a group of "famous" writers when the New York Times Book Review asked them to name the "books they've enjoyed the most over the last few months," and to explain the reasoning behind their choices. Mainly, I'm mulling over why I share their enthusiasms for certain titles, but not others. And I'm trying to decide which of the mentioned books I haven't yet read I'll place on my TBR list.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Monday Morning Listings
The Nation seeks an Editor for its "Books & the Arts" section. From the announcement: "Candidate must have vision, experience, commissioning skills, administrative abilities and a grasp of currents in global and U.S. politics, history, contemporary fiction, media, music, visual arts, and both high and popular culture. The position demands excellent editing skills. MINORITIES STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO APPLY."
PEN American Center (New York City) has two job openings at the moment: Web Site Associate Editor and Public Programs Associate. Click here for details.
Words Without Borders, the online magazine for literature in translation, is looking for a part-time Editor (apparently this is a New York-based job). Check the announcement on mediabistro.com (free registration required).
Thinking of pitching Hybrid Mom, "the reality magazine for moms"? Check this magazine profile first for some tips.
The Cambridge Center for Adult Education (Massachusetts) "seeks a published writer to teach a course in Basic Freelance Writing for our fall term (September 24-December 7). Applicants should be familiar with the process of selling non-fiction articles to magazines and newspapers and have excellent communication skills. Some teaching experience is preferred, but not essential. The course may address the following topics: online research, ethical dilemmas, the fine points of writer-editor etiquette, and the importance of knowing your rights in the multimedia age." Pays: "To be determined." See the craigslist announcement here for more information.
"Wheaton College (IL) seeks candidates for a tenure-track, assistant professor position for the fall of 2008 in one of two areas: world literatures in English with expertise in Anglophone African, Indian, or Caribbean literature (or in some combination of these); or creative writing with an expertise in poetry. The best candidates will also be able to teach introductory courses in writing and literature. Ph.D. must be completed by August 2008." See the announcement at The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The University of Mississippi is looking for a "Visiting Professor of English and Administrative Assistant for MFA Program." See the announcement at HigherEdJobs.com (looks to me as though they're seeking a poet).
Attention, playwrights! The latest issue of Theatre Funding News is now online.
PEN American Center (New York City) has two job openings at the moment: Web Site Associate Editor and Public Programs Associate. Click here for details.
Words Without Borders, the online magazine for literature in translation, is looking for a part-time Editor (apparently this is a New York-based job). Check the announcement on mediabistro.com (free registration required).
Thinking of pitching Hybrid Mom, "the reality magazine for moms"? Check this magazine profile first for some tips.
The Cambridge Center for Adult Education (Massachusetts) "seeks a published writer to teach a course in Basic Freelance Writing for our fall term (September 24-December 7). Applicants should be familiar with the process of selling non-fiction articles to magazines and newspapers and have excellent communication skills. Some teaching experience is preferred, but not essential. The course may address the following topics: online research, ethical dilemmas, the fine points of writer-editor etiquette, and the importance of knowing your rights in the multimedia age." Pays: "To be determined." See the craigslist announcement here for more information.
"Wheaton College (IL) seeks candidates for a tenure-track, assistant professor position for the fall of 2008 in one of two areas: world literatures in English with expertise in Anglophone African, Indian, or Caribbean literature (or in some combination of these); or creative writing with an expertise in poetry. The best candidates will also be able to teach introductory courses in writing and literature. Ph.D. must be completed by August 2008." See the announcement at The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The University of Mississippi is looking for a "Visiting Professor of English and Administrative Assistant for MFA Program." See the announcement at HigherEdJobs.com (looks to me as though they're seeking a poet).
Attention, playwrights! The latest issue of Theatre Funding News is now online.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
From My Bookshelf: Reading Like a Writer
The original version of this review appeared in The Writer Magazine, February 2007.
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
by Francine Prose, HarperCollins, 288 pages.
Hardcover, $23.95 (also available in paperback as of April 2007, $13.95)
We hear it all the time: If you want to be a writer, read. And don't just skim, or read for plot, or race through to a story's end. Read in a special way. Read closely. Read like a writer.
But what does that really mean? How does one read for lessons on craft and technique, lessons that can hopefully be transferred from Flaubert's or Tolstoy's pages to one's own? It's an essential art for any serious writer, but it can be an extraordinarily elusive one. Fortunately, Francine Prose, herself the author of 14 books of fiction, has given us a guide to her own "education as a novelist" that truly does, as she intends, "help the passionate reader and would-be writer understand how a writer reads."
Other writers and writing instructors may talk about "close reading," but Prose actually shows us how it's done. Again and again, she provides excerpts from published work followed by her own analysis. She looks at words; she looks at sentences; she looks at the language within the dialogue. For Prose, these are the concepts that really matter: she notes that "to talk about sentences is to have a conversation about something far more meaningful and personal to most authors than the questions they're more often asked, such as, Do you have a work schedule? Do you use a computer? Where do you get your ideas?"
So talk about sentences (and words, paragraphs, dialogue, narration, and much more) Prose does. In neatly divided chapters, she takes on all the true tools of the writer's craft and shows us how others have used them to maximum effect. She gives us, for example, the first lines of the first six paragraphs in Stendhal's The Red and the Black, showing how the author "introduc[es] the reader to the topography of the town before narrowing in on one of its inhabitants." She also gives us that novel's entire fifth paragraph, "because it is such an elegant example of its form, one of those single paragraphs in which a writer tells us nearly all we need to know about a character."
Stendhal is no accidental selection. Reading Prose's examples, as well as following her suggested "List of Books to Be Read Immediately," you'll be considering many "classic" authors. Although she highlights some contemporary writers, including Gary Shteyngart and ZZ Packer, her texts of reference come primarily from the canonical past, for which she (refreshingly) makes no apologies: "You can assume that if a writer's work has survived for centuries there are reasons why this is so, explanations that have nothing to do with a conspiracy of academics plotting to resuscitate a zombie army of dead white males." Prose even devotes an entire chapter to "Learning from Chekhov."
At the same time, Prose is careful to point out how often traditions--in the form of familiar writing mantras and "rules"--can and have been broken. Citing an Alice Munro excerpt, for instance, she encourages us to think how much more powerful "telling" can be, when we're usually directed to "show." Later, when she notes that one-sentence paragraphs "can be an annoying tic, a lazy writer's attempt to compel us to pay attention or to inject energy and life into a narrative," Prose also provides examples (Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" and Raymond Carver's "Fat") "in which single sentences actually do seem to merit paragraphs of their own."
An experienced teacher, Prose also anticipates difficulties newer writers encounter: "Even when novice writers avoid the sort of dialogue that is essentially exposition framed by quotation marks, the dialogue they do write often serves a single purpose--that is, to advance the plot--rather than the numerous simultaneous aims that it can accomplish." Then she provides counterexamples that instruct, illustrate and inspire (in this case, excerpts, sometimes lengthy, from novels by Henry Green).
"I've always thought that a close-reading course should at least be a companion, if not an alternative, to the writing workshop," Prose muses. For those not lucky enough to enroll in such a course with Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer is an excellent (not to mention relatively inexpensive) substitute.
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
by Francine Prose, HarperCollins, 288 pages.
Hardcover, $23.95 (also available in paperback as of April 2007, $13.95)
We hear it all the time: If you want to be a writer, read. And don't just skim, or read for plot, or race through to a story's end. Read in a special way. Read closely. Read like a writer.
But what does that really mean? How does one read for lessons on craft and technique, lessons that can hopefully be transferred from Flaubert's or Tolstoy's pages to one's own? It's an essential art for any serious writer, but it can be an extraordinarily elusive one. Fortunately, Francine Prose, herself the author of 14 books of fiction, has given us a guide to her own "education as a novelist" that truly does, as she intends, "help the passionate reader and would-be writer understand how a writer reads."
Other writers and writing instructors may talk about "close reading," but Prose actually shows us how it's done. Again and again, she provides excerpts from published work followed by her own analysis. She looks at words; she looks at sentences; she looks at the language within the dialogue. For Prose, these are the concepts that really matter: she notes that "to talk about sentences is to have a conversation about something far more meaningful and personal to most authors than the questions they're more often asked, such as, Do you have a work schedule? Do you use a computer? Where do you get your ideas?"
So talk about sentences (and words, paragraphs, dialogue, narration, and much more) Prose does. In neatly divided chapters, she takes on all the true tools of the writer's craft and shows us how others have used them to maximum effect. She gives us, for example, the first lines of the first six paragraphs in Stendhal's The Red and the Black, showing how the author "introduc[es] the reader to the topography of the town before narrowing in on one of its inhabitants." She also gives us that novel's entire fifth paragraph, "because it is such an elegant example of its form, one of those single paragraphs in which a writer tells us nearly all we need to know about a character."
Stendhal is no accidental selection. Reading Prose's examples, as well as following her suggested "List of Books to Be Read Immediately," you'll be considering many "classic" authors. Although she highlights some contemporary writers, including Gary Shteyngart and ZZ Packer, her texts of reference come primarily from the canonical past, for which she (refreshingly) makes no apologies: "You can assume that if a writer's work has survived for centuries there are reasons why this is so, explanations that have nothing to do with a conspiracy of academics plotting to resuscitate a zombie army of dead white males." Prose even devotes an entire chapter to "Learning from Chekhov."
At the same time, Prose is careful to point out how often traditions--in the form of familiar writing mantras and "rules"--can and have been broken. Citing an Alice Munro excerpt, for instance, she encourages us to think how much more powerful "telling" can be, when we're usually directed to "show." Later, when she notes that one-sentence paragraphs "can be an annoying tic, a lazy writer's attempt to compel us to pay attention or to inject energy and life into a narrative," Prose also provides examples (Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" and Raymond Carver's "Fat") "in which single sentences actually do seem to merit paragraphs of their own."
An experienced teacher, Prose also anticipates difficulties newer writers encounter: "Even when novice writers avoid the sort of dialogue that is essentially exposition framed by quotation marks, the dialogue they do write often serves a single purpose--that is, to advance the plot--rather than the numerous simultaneous aims that it can accomplish." Then she provides counterexamples that instruct, illustrate and inspire (in this case, excerpts, sometimes lengthy, from novels by Henry Green).
"I've always thought that a close-reading course should at least be a companion, if not an alternative, to the writing workshop," Prose muses. For those not lucky enough to enroll in such a course with Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer is an excellent (not to mention relatively inexpensive) substitute.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Friday Find: H-Southern-Lit
I discovered the H-Net Discussion Networks in one of my previous lives as a graduate student, and I am always interested to see the new lists that continue to pop up there. Among the latest is H-Southern-Lit, which "promotes the study and discussion of U.S. southern literature by scholars, teachers, researchers, and other interested parties." The network seems to be just getting off the ground, but at this early date it does already offer an interesting collection of resources (academic societies and associations, academic journals, academic centers, academic presses, Web sites, "other publications" and "other organizations"). I know plenty of you visit this blog from the U.S. South--I thought you'd appreciate this discovery.
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