I can’t write a post about women’s literature. I could, but it’s not my field of study and I’d just wind up offending the scholars who know what they’re talking about. But I can list some of the women authors and poets I admire most, which is all this is. And by all means, ifContinue reading “Women writers”
Category Archives: writers
Dr. Seuss was Greek
I just wanted to jump in here and say hello to my friends and brothers at Sigma Phi Epsilon–Wisconsin Theta. SigEp is an outstanding fraternity based on the ideal of a balanced man and promoting the core values of Virtue, Diligence, and Brotherly Love. They seek to undo the negative stereotyping associated with many fraternities,Continue reading “Dr. Seuss was Greek”
Patrons of writing and teaching: The Muses
As I reviewed my list of writing patrons today, I realized that most of my patrons are women. I don’t know why this is, or what this might mean for my writing. A few years ago a friend pointed out The Gender Genie, an online gender analysis tool for prose–just paste in a chunk ofContinue reading “Patrons of writing and teaching: The Muses”
A Writer’s Notebook: Revision
I’m chest deep in a revision of my novel right now, but I’m also reading Alice Munro, who makes me want to work on short fiction. So I figured this week, I’d put my hands together and do a revision exercise on one of my long-problematic short stories. Because this is slightly complicated, I’m goingContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Revision”
A Writer’s Notebook: Introduction
My friend Lori Ann Bloomfield and I have been swapping e-mails about writing exercises lately (from which exchanges I’ve cribbed some of this post). We were talking about first lines, and I mentioned that my story “Bathe in the Doggone Sin” started out as a first-line exercise. Which got me thinking about writing exercises inContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Introduction”
Writing as work; or, a new literary daydream
Wish I could claim this idea as my own, but I can’t. In fact, it’s a kind of convoluted web of connection, appropriate to the Internet but a bit confusing. I was reading a recent entry in the terrific little blog Literary Rejections on Display, which was in turn a reference to an e-mail commentingContinue reading “Writing as work; or, a new literary daydream”
Patrons of writing and teaching: St. Francis de Sales and St. John the Apostle
I’ve been writing off and on about my “patrons of writing,” but I feel I need to acknowledge that, for me, the term I chose comes from Christianity, specifically Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and the Christian notion of “patron saints.” So I figure it’s about time I mention a couple of my Christian patrons. According toContinue reading “Patrons of writing and teaching: St. Francis de Sales and St. John the Apostle”
Patrons of writing and teaching: Anansi
Since February is Black History month in the US, I thought I’d write about another of my writing patrons, Anansi the Spider, King of Stories. I first learned of Anansi from my college friend Moses Elango, who is from Cameroon, but many people encounter Anansi long before their college years: Anansi is a common figureContinue reading “Patrons of writing and teaching: Anansi”
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place*
Just about every book on writing you’re likely to ever pick up will begin with this advice: Find a place to write. It’s strange advice, in some ways, because the most important thing about writing should always be the writing — the words themselves — which means it shouldn’t matter where you write or even howContinue reading “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place*”
Good-bye, Mr. Salinger
J. D. Salinger is dead. We can’t say the world will miss him, because we’ve been missing him for almost 40 years. And if Hemingway’s example is anything to go by, I hope we never do see the novels he never intended us to read, for the sake of his legacy. But he did leaveContinue reading “Good-bye, Mr. Salinger”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 