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Behind the Dictionary
Greetings from the Fringes of English
Mon Aug 21 00:00:00 EDT 2006
Grant Barrett, the author of The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English , is living a word lover's dream: By day he's a lexicographer and project editor at the Oxford University Press's "Historical Dictionary of American Slang," and by night he runs the Double-Tongued Word Wrester's Dictionary, his acclaimed website dedicated to hunting "under-documented words from the fringes of English." After getting hooked on his Double-Tongued discoveries -- from bark mitzvah to whoadie to blow a hoolie -- we had to talk to him. Here's our conversation:
VT: How do you find your Double-Tongued words?
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Backstory
Peter Grandbois, author of The Gravedigger
Sat Aug 19 00:00:00 EDT 2006
There's an anonymous Spanish folk song called "La hija de Juan Simon" about a gravedigger who has to bury his daughter. In the version I have, the song is sung by the legendary Juanito Valderrama. The song gave me goose bumps, and I told myself that one day I would write the story of that gravedigger. Since then, I've played the song over and over, probably a thousand times, and I still get goose bumps every time.
A few years later, while attending the low-residency MFA program at Bennington College, I was having coffee with my teacher, the writer Elizabeth Cox, and she asked me about my relationship with my three-year-old daughter, Elena, (my second being just a baby at the time). I began to tell her the story of how each night as I tucked Elena into bed I would tell her a story. Only before I finished nearly every line, Elena would interrupt me, saying, "No, Daddy, that's not how it goes. It goes like this." And then she would proceed to send the story in a new direction. Like a good father, I would adapt and attempt to take the story in that direction but after another line she would interrupt me again and do the same thing. I was in the process of telling Elizabeth that this would go on for as long as I told the story, when she looked at me and said, "I think you have a story in there."
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Blog Excerpts
What to Name Junior?
Sat Aug 19 00:00:00 EDT 2006
Last month we excerpted a blog entry from Away With Words, professional name developer Nancy Friedman's website on naming and copywriting. We had to revisit her when we read a recent entry titled "What Not to Name the Baby." Nancy says "naming a baby is not all that different from naming middleware, perfume or a venture capital firm." Why? Read the entry here.
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Dog Eared
A Kids' Librarian's Book Picks
Wed Aug 16 00:00:00 EDT 2006
Betsy Bird, the remarkable and passionate children's librarian we spoke to this week about great children's books, tracks the latest kid's literature at her job, and on her blog, the well-thumbed (virtually speaking) A Fuse #8 Production. Here are fifty or so of her favorites published this year. She reads them all, so she knows!
Picture Books:
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Blog Du Jour
A Kids' Librarian's Blogs
Wed Aug 16 00:00:00 EDT 2006
Besty Bird, a librarian at the New York Public Library who blogs about children's literature on her popular A Fuse #8 Production website, suggests checking out these blogs to find out more about kid's books:
Read Roger run by Roger Sutton, the editor of Horn Book Magazine
Bookshelves of Doom run by Leila, a librarian of Kennebunk, ME
Big A little a run by Kelly Herold, a midwestern language professor
Mother Reader run by Pam Coughlan, children's library assistant in northern Virginia.
Oz and Ends run by J.L. Bell, a writer, editor and researcher.
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Teachers at Work
A Kids' Librarian's Advice
Wed Aug 16 00:00:00 EDT 2006
What books should your kids read? Just ask Betsy Bird. As a senior librarian at The New York Public Library's Donnell Central Children's Reading Room, she talks to parents and kids of all stripes about great reads. When she's not at the library, she's blogging on A Fuse #8 Production, her popular website dedicated to children's literature. And when she's not blogging, she's on the radio, talking about kids' books on NPR. All this as "a mere slip of a 28-year-old." We called Betsy for a book-filled conversation about children's lit:
VT: Do you still remember the books you read as a kid?
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Word Count
Nurse Poet
Mon Aug 14 00:00:00 EDT 2006
Veneta Masson has practiced nursing for 35 years, mostly in inner-city Washington, DC. Along the way, she found an outlet to express everything she was witnessing and experiencing -- poetry. Veneta started putting together essays and poems about her nursing life and today has two collections in print, Ninth Street Notebook (short pieces) and Rehab at the Florida Avenue Grill (poems). She's also part of a community of nurses who write verse influenced by their profession. Call them Nurse Poets.
VT: How did you get started writing poetry?
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Dog Eared
Nurse Poet's Books
Mon Aug 14 00:00:00 EDT 2006
Veneta Masson, the nurse and poet we interviewed recently for our "Word Count" section, recommends these anthologies to get a taste of nurses' writing:
Between the Heartbeats and Intensive Care , both edited by Cortney Davis and Judy Schaefer, were published by U. of Iowa Press. They include nurses' stories in both poetry and prose.
The Poetry of Nursing was edited by Judy Schaefer and consists of poems and commentary by fifteen nurse poets.
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Backstory
Heather Sharfeddin, author of "Blackbelly"
Sat Aug 12 00:00:00 EDT 2006
I love the name Blackbelly because it's mysterious -- some people suspect it's erotic, some that it's racist. It is, in fact, a breed of sheep with black bellies that hails from Barbados. Like my protagonist, Chas McPherson, I raise Blackbelly sheep. He raises them for meat, but I just use them to keep down the blackberries on my Oregon farm.
I was working on another novel (my fourth unpublished) when I woke up in the middle of the night compelled to write Blackbelly . When people ask me where my ideas come from, I have to say they come straight out of the darkness like a bolt of lightning. Or, at least the best ideas do. There was a connection in Blackbelly that was more personal to me than just the fact that I raise sheep, though it wasn't evident until I'd finished the first draft. That's when, stepping back, I could see the web of themes I'd knitted together and their striking relevance to my life: faith vs. religion, sin and forgiveness, prejudice and rural Idaho.
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Blog Excerpts
Buzzword Compliant Dictionary
Sat Aug 12 00:00:00 EDT 2006
BuzzWhack defines "buzzwords" as important-sounding words used to impress laypeople, and "buzzwhacker" as a person who gets pleasure out of bursting the bubbles of the pompous. Buzzwhackers out there, this one's for you! BuzzWhack demystifies one buzzword after the other on its site, including this delicious morsel: "Lawn mullet: A lawn that's neatly mowed in the front but uncut in the back." Read more buzzwords debunked here.
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by Jonathan Allen
by Suzy Becker
by Lauren Child 
by Kelly Cunnane
