I’m in Dubai this weekend, visiting friends. Yesterday, I spent part of my day on the Dubai campus of Zayed University, where, in a hallway leading to the campus library, I found a row of large, framed prints, each bearing–in Arabic and in English–lines of poetry. The lines all come from existing poetry, but theyContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Found poem (from Nizar Qabbani)”
Tag Archives: writing
A Writer’s Notebook: My nephew’s assignment
Yesterday, my sister sent me an e-mail which contained a story my nephew Aidan had written. His story was about a string, and it reminded me of my own string story, which I began to write for my nephew. And then–because Aidan’s story was a school writing assignment–I realized this would make an excellent Writer’sContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: My nephew’s assignment”
A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo outline
This is perhaps a bit early — National Novel Writing Month is still two weeks away — but I’ve had this project (and vampires in general) on the brain lately, so I figured I might as well get started. (SPOILER ALERT: If anyone feels like following along with my progress on this book during NaNoWriMo, skipContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo outline”
15 Authors (and then some)
There’s a meme going around Facebook (and probably elsewhere) in which we are invited to name 15 influential authors in 15 minutes. It reads like this: The Rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who’ve influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen youContinue reading “15 Authors (and then some)”
Vonnegut at the blackboard
I was so glad to see Ampersand Review link to this article in Lapham’s Quarterly: I had to profound good fortune to see Kurt Vonnegut give this same lecture at Trinity University in San Antonio back in, oh, 1995? 1996? I forget the date, but I will never forget this lecture, in which Vonnegut explainsContinue reading “Vonnegut at the blackboard”
A Writer’s Notebook: Photo story
My wife turned our laptop around the other day and showed me this photo and said, “You should write about this.” So, first, the photo, and then the writing. And then, the exercise. People think I do this for money. I put out a box and I don’t object when people drop money in it. Continue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Photo story”
A new story
As promised in the last Writer’s Notebook entry, I wrote a story for Ryan Werner’s Our Band Could Be Your Lit blog. I’ve been a fan of this project since before it began, back when it was still an exercise on my blog, but I’m awfully damn impressed with where Ryan is taking it. AndContinue reading “A new story”
A Writer’s Notebook: Our Band Could Be Your Lit
This week the writer’s notebook will get delayed. That’s not because I’m not working, but because I’m working toward something. I’ve agreed to write a guest-blog story for Our Band Could Be Your Lit, so I’m using this week’s Notebook to work on that. But the story won’t get posted until Sunday (and probably won’tContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Our Band Could Be Your Lit”
A Writer’s Notebook: Revision checklist
Today’s exercise is going to be short and relatively uncreative. I’m polishing up a story collection I recently finished, and while most of the stories are published, finished, or well on their way, one is still very much an ugly draft, so I’ve decided to go over that weakest story and do some broad revision.Continue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Revision checklist”
A Writer’s Notebook: “Uninvited Guests”
Like my early Writer’s Notebook entry “1,000 words,” this exercise requires I post a picture. This picture, though, comes with a title and a caption, which I’ve included with the pic at the right (for the full citation, see the end of the story). Children’s lit fans might recognize the title of this post and/orContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: “Uninvited Guests””
Samuel Snoek-Brown 