Haiti

Chile

I wrote two weeks ago about the earthquake in Chile and how we should donate to help Chileans, and I promised to post updates about charitable organizations as I had for Haiti. I have not written about Chile since. Why? Updates never became available. I checked, almost every day, for news about Chile and reliefContinue reading “Chile”

Research tip #5: Shop the catalogue

For more on researching for fiction, go to the main research page. I’ve written about this before, but just to recap: Tom Franklin hates doing research. Yet his first two novels were historical fiction, which stuck Franklin doing the very thing he hates. Still, Franklin prefers to focus on the writing, to let the fictionContinue reading “Research tip #5: Shop the catalogue”

Research tip #4: Shoot the bullet

For more on researching for fiction, go to the main research page. A few years ago, I was at the big national conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, and a friend of mine, Tom Franklin, was on a panel discussing research in fiction. Franklin joined the panel by virtue of his historicalContinue reading “Research tip #4: Shoot the bullet”

Research tip #3: Go to the source

For more on researching for fiction, go to the main research page. A lot of great writers started out as journalists, and critics have offered a lot of reasons for that shared background. Journalists know how to work under deadline, they have an instinct for finding a story, they’ve learned how to find an angleContinue reading “Research tip #3: Go to the source”

Weekend repreive

The research series is on hold for the weekend (I live in a Muslim country, where our weekend is Friday and Saturday), so look for Tip #3 on Sunday. In the meantime, if you’re on Facebook: Today a friend of mine who is a Unitarian minister alerted me to a “Prayers & Thoughts for theContinue reading “Weekend repreive”

More help for Haiti

The links just keep coming, thanks especially to my friends Rima Abunasser, Beth Davidson, and Diana Pearson. I’m re-posting the list from yesterday, but some links are to organizations and some to lists of organizations, so I’m listing the lists first: Charity Navigator (this is a kind of clearing house for reliable, reputable charities; itContinue reading “More help for Haiti”

I want to pause in the series on researching to focus on more important matters: Haiti. As I write this, the death toll is not yet known, and like the horrible tsunami catastrophe of 2005, we may never truly know. What we do know is that millions — that’s millions — of Haitians are injured orContinue reading “Haiti”