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  1. Blog Du Jour

     Blogs to Flip For
    Wed May 10 00:00:00 EDT 2006

    Subscriber Ange Michelbach of Atlanta, GA -- that's her foot in the flipper -- contributed these blog and site picks:

    I am frequent visitor to McSweeney's Internet Tendency. In particular, I adore the absurd lists.

    BoingBoing , a Directory of Wonderful Things, never fails to provide something useful or whimsical.

    Perpetual Kid sells Nihilist Gum; not surprisingly, it has no flavor.

    Don't forget: Send us your top blogs -- and tell us why you like 'em. Email us.

  2. Word Count

     Extreme close up. In other words, dialogue.
    Mon May 08 00:00:00 EDT 2006

    Your editor here. I want to tell you about my old pal Clark Morgan. He's a playwright with six productions under his cummerbund and, by sunlight, a top creative at ad giant Ogilvy. He's an amazing writer who once taught composition at a major U. When I wanted to improve my work I asked Clark for help. We started meeting at a local bagel shop and between bites and schmears he fine-tuned my stuff. My writing soared. The bagels weren't bad, either.

    I asked Clark if I could tape our "bagel summits" for you, our fine subscribers. He graciously agreed. Here's the kick-off installment of an occasional series that will help you -- and me -- get better. Today we're talking about dialogue, listening and writing like you're shooting a movie.

  3. Dog Eared

     Cormac McCarthy
    Mon May 08 00:00:00 EDT 2006

    Subscriber Saul Gliserman recommends "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy:

    I would think that most subscribers to VT would enjoy Blood Meridian immensely because of McCarthy's use of the English language. The book reads as an admixture of the Old Testament, Homer, Shakespeare and Melville. Although there is much gory realism, it is by no means gratuitous, and it conveys, in a profoundly realistic fashion, what life was like in the "Old West" of the mid-nineteenth century. The book left me with the utmost respect for McCarthy's talent, and I would rank him among this country's finest writers of any era.

  4. Department of Word Lists

     Tea Words
    Sat May 06 00:00:00 EDT 2006
    Submitted by Sebastian Beckwith, founder of In Pursuit of Tea, a company dedicated to "exploring remote regions to supply the finest artisanal teas."

    FireMoldy
    SteamYeasty
    WitherSour
    RoastSweet
    OxidizeFloral
    FermentFruity
    FlushSpicy
    SkiffSavory
    SteepCitric
    InfuseCaramel
    StrainNutty
    EarthyVegetal
    BarnBurnt
    MushroomSmoky

  5. Backstory

     M.J. Rose, author of "The Delilah Complex"
    Fri May 05 00:00:00 EDT 2006

    As a reader, the first garden that meant anything to me was The Secret Garden written by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was more than magical, it was deeply mysterious: locked up and hidden behind a stone wall with overgrown trees that reached for the sky.

    It was the first mystery I'd ever heard read to me and opened up a floodgate of questions. Why was the garden locked? Why wasn't the lord of the manor ever home? What was the very secret hinted at in the title?

    And so began my love of mysteries, forever intertwining suspense and gardens for me.

  6. Blog Excerpts

     Seven
    Fri May 05 00:00:00 EDT 2006

    This entry comes from an outstanding blog called Gangrey that describes itself as "prolonging the slow death of newspapers." It highlights great writing from papers across the country. This entry appeared on 07/26/05:

    Just how many stories ARE there? Got in the mail in a package from Amazon.com a big fat book called The Seven Basic Plots. In it a dorky British guy named Christopher Booker says that's how many stories there are.

    1. Rebirth
    2. Tragedy
    3. Comedy
    4. The Quest
    5. Voyage and Return
    6. Rags to Riches
    7. Overcoming the Monster

    That's it.

    Discuss.

  7. Teachers at Work

     Feel the Words
    Wed May 03 00:00:00 EDT 2006

    Gina Peebles teaches English at the Continuous Learning Center in Camden, South Carolina. It's an alternative school for problem students expelled from the district's junior high and high schools. Gina's a "core academic" teacher, the only English instructor at the school. She works with fifty students and teaches many different levels, often in the same classroom. Gina has to get creative to get through to these challenging students. So she puts technology - and the Visual Thesaurus - to work in her classroom in innovative ways. She explains how.

  8. Lesson Plans 101

     Caught'ya!
    Wed May 03 00:00:00 EDT 2006

    Check out this lesson plan that uses the Visual Thesaurus. It was graciously submitted by Gina Peebles, a high school english teacher at the Continuous Learning Center in Camden, South Carolina. She calls it "Caught'ya." (Thank you, Gina!)

  9. Word Count

     You Can't Fix a Blank Page
    Mon May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2006

    Eileen Wilks is one busy author. In the past ten years, she's written twenty nine novels. Her world? Romance, the most popular genre in America. And not only here: Eileen's books have been translated into twelve languages. She recently emailed us about how the Visual Thesaurus helps her work.

    "The Visual Thesaurus isn't just a fun way to avoid writing, or other productive work. (Though it is that, at times.) Yesterday I used it to come up with a title for my current book-in-progress. My editor emailed me that she'd be cover-conferencing the book next week, and did I have a title yet? Well, no. I had some ideas, all bad. I took a few key words and started plugging them into the Visual Thesaurus, following one link or another, backtracking, and eventually -- boing! I hit pay dirt. Thank you for a wonderful tool. I wouldn't have arrived at 'Blood Lines' without it."

    You're most welcome, Eileen.

    Eileen also gave us an idea: We wanted to find out how she does it -- what are her secrets for being so productive a writer? And what advice does she have for those of us struggling to write, whether it's our first book or first marketing brochure? So we called Eileen at home in Midland, Texas, to find out. We hit pay dirt, too:

  10. Teachers at Work

     Dropouts or Ivy Leaguers, Writing's the Same.
    Mon May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2006

    Lori Pope runs a busy New York literary agency called Writers Represent. When she's not reading manuscripts, developing authors and closing book deals, Lori pursues another passion: Teaching writing. She leads two kinds of classes. One for post-graduate students at the Columbia Publishing Course at Columbia University. The other for high school dropouts earning their GED and Associate's degree at a school called the Interboro Institute. As you'd expect, Lori uses different techniques to teach the different classes. As you might not expect, the two groups have more in common than you'd think. Lori explains:

343 344 345 346 347 Displaying 3441-3450 of 3488 Results