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Write a short story in which a museum is the setting for the central conflict. Consider the following questions: What kind of museum is it? Why are the characters there? Do any of the museum's objects trigger a turn in the story? Visit a local museum or peruse one's holdings online to find inspiration.
In this video for Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, Erin Smith animates and scores a sentence from "Recovery" by Helen DeWitt, set to music by Spookfish. Here's the sentence: "Um, okay, no, not purring like, obviously, producing a sound that is more reminiscent of steam engine FX than your typical purr."
Author Rick Bass was arrested Monday with a group of anti-coal protestors for refusing to leave the Montana capitol building; a new law in Argentina offers a pension to aging authors; Verlyn Klinkenborg attempts to shine a light on the origin of sentences; and other news.
In the first episode of UCB Comedy's web series about two best friends trying to coauthor a novel, Noah and Dru agree upon some ground rules to make their weekly casual writer meetings more effective.
During the next week, take note of the various flora and fauna you encounter. Look through classification books or search online for the precise names for the animals, birds, and plants you’ve observed. Choose the most sonorous names and include two in your next poem.
The Guardian lists the United Kingdom's one hundred bestselling books of all time; Joan Didion is slotted to pen a film script for director Todd Field; Vogue features Annie Leibovitz photographs with Jonathan Safran Foer, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Junot Díaz in period costume at Edith Wharton's estate; and other news.
A self-confessed "nerd about fonts" imagines what the voices of some of the most popular fonts would sound like.
Author David Rakoff has passed away at forty-seven; Forbes lists the top-earning authors; Charles Simic laments the lost art of writing postcards; and other news.
In a short video from earlier this year, the author of three essay collections, including his most recent, Half Empty (Doubleday, 2010), and a frequent contributor to This American Life, talks about why he writes, the nature of creativity, and why writing only gets harder. Rakoff died on Thursday night after a battle with cancer. He was forty-seven.
The author of the new story collection Sorry Please Thank You (Pantheon), who is profiled in the current issue of the magazine by contributing editor Kevin Nance, talks about "not writing" as a means to being more productive, counterfeit writing, and writing that "slips out like a burp."
