8 9 10 11 12 Displaying 64-70 of 151 Articles

We writers about writing mostly write about "good" writing; we give our readers helpful hints on how to write well and point them to masters like Homer and Dickens to show them how it's done.

Good writing, however, does not form the bulk of writing. Like islands lost in the vast Pacific, writing's great works rise as rare peaks above endless oceans of bad writing, books and journals in which the writing is so poor or feeble or dull or trivial or trite or pompous or false or malicious or stupid that it lives for a day and dies away.  Continue reading...
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The title story of my collection, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, began with me falling in love with a word: Madagascar. I fell head-over-heels for the cadence, for the way it evoked a Jacques Cousteau-esque sense of adventure and mystery.  Continue reading...
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Years ago, after I'd graduated from grade 12 and moved on to higher learning — English 100 and Philosophy 120 — I discovered that my university had a recording library. Hallelujah! Sounds quaint now, I know, but this was more than a generation before iPods, and I was ridiculously excited about getting to hear music via headphones.  Continue reading...
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Here is the latest contribution from Michael Lydon on the writer's art.

My recent Visual Thesaurus essay, "Realism: The Truth of Fiction," set off a brisk debate in the comment section, the gist of which was, "Okay, Michael, realism is the truth of fiction, but what is this 'reality' that realism describes?"  Continue reading...
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I used to play at being a writer.

Afternoons in Boston, in my early 20s, I'd pour three fingers of Black Bush whiskey, feed a page into my typewriter, and surround my desk with books by whoever I was reading then — Bill Knott, Marguerite Duras — and add to that bibles and newspapers. I'd open to random pages and write down whatever caught my eye, whatever seemed anachronistic or poignant, then I'd make a hash out of it.  Continue reading...
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One of the most important moments in writing my novel, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, came when I realized I could reach outside of reality.  Continue reading...
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New techniques of "digital archaeology" reveal long-lost secrets about how Thomas Jefferson tinkered with word choice while drafting the Declaration of Independence. University of Illinois linguist Dennis Baron has the full story.  Continue reading...
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8 9 10 11 12 Displaying 64-70 of 151 Articles