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Novelist Ann Patchett weighs in on the debate over women's reproductive rights; Flavorwire features twelve great small press books, including Melissa Broder's Meat Heart; Eric Weinstein offers advice for the new crop of MFA graduates; and other news.
Like fiction, good nonfiction narratives are often driven by description of place. Think of a place that you know well—your kitchen, your office, or a spot you often visit—and, from memory, write a passage that describes that place. Focus on the physical characteristics of the space, leaving out any emotion that may be connected to it, and be as descriptive and detailed as possible. The next time you’re there, read your description and see how accurately your memory served you. Take note of the details you may have missed.
The author of The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows, forthcoming in July, talks about the work of remembering what he's already written in his head and getting it down on paper in the lastest episode of Knopf Doubleday Writers on Writing.
Look through your desk or visit a thrift store or drugstore to find a selection of postcards. Write short missives to yourself in the voice of an imagined character, sending a dozen or so cards to your home address. Allow your reaction to receiving the postcards and the messages themselves, inspire the beginnings of a story.
Novelist David Goodwillie investigates the hazardous job of nuclear diving; Commentary ranks American writers using the MLA International Bibliography as a guide; John Green, the best-selling author of The Fault in Our Stars, explains why checking a book out of a library is preferable to online piracy; and other news.
This short video, which was shot, directed, and edited by Glen Milner for the Daily Telegraph, shows Suzanne St. Albans's novel Mango and Mimosa being printed by Smith-Settle Printers in Leeds, England.
Open a dictionary, an encyclopedia, or a book from your bookshelves to any page; choose a word, and write it down. Repeat this nine times. Write a poem with ten couplets (they need not rhyme) using one of the words from your list in each couplet, without using the first person.
Critic David Ulin has a look at the just published first novel of Jack Kerouac; Roxane Gay discusses race, and the killing of Trayvon Martin; Steve Almond imagines it may not be a coincidence that psychotherapy is waning while writing programs are booming; and other news.
