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Sunday Sentence

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled
Ari Shavit
Ari Shavit

Another Sunday in which I participate in David Abrams’s “Sunday Sentence” project, which asks others to share the best sentence(s) we’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”

He comes not to praise or to blame, though along the way he does both, with erudition and with eloquence; he comes instead to observe and to reflect.

Source: Leon Wieseltier, reviewing Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, for the New York Times Book Review.

Friday Finds for Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Treasure ChestWriting-related resources, news, and reflections to enjoy over the weekend.

  • A return to the issues of “niceness” in book reviews, the differences between reviews and publicity pieces, and similar topics, occasioned by the announcement of Isaac Fitzgerald’s new job.
  • On the Ploughshares blog, Rebecca Makkai shares “14 Ways to Tick Off a Writer.” (I confess that I’m guilty of committing #11–albeit in an un-patronizing way [I hope]. I really do believe that completing a novel draft is a huge achievement.)
  • Need some help with your poems? (I sure do.) Check out Carmen Giménez Smith’s “Twenty-two Poem Hacks” on the Harriet blog.
  • Speaking of poetry: Diane Lockward follows up on the fate of six rejected poems.
  • Jane Friedman offers tips on finding and working with a book publicist.

    • Have a great weekend.

    Weekend Web Wanderings

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    Usually, I limit writing-link roundups to the “Friday Finds” posts. But I’ve run across so many interesting items over the past couple of days that I’m going sharing an exceptional set of “Weekend Web Wanderings” today as well. Hope that you enjoy!

  • Over on the Ploughshares blog, Rebecca Makkai advocates “writing as if…”. (h/t @occasionallyzen)
  • There’s something kind of whiny about this piece by Lionel Shriver on how much non-writing is involved in a writer’s work life. But there’s also something true about it.
  • Fascinating interview with poet Nikki Finney. Among the thought-provoking morsels: “Nobody wants to hear your rant. If you want to rant and if you want to be full of rage, you can put that in your journal book. Art is about the provocative, but it is also about the beautiful. I never forget that. They go hand in hand for me.”
  • Carol Tice takes on the subject of early-reader reviews–and how to make them better.
  • And I’m cheating a bit with this one. Let’s just say that I’ve recently been “inspired” to revisit my own “7 Reasons This Writer May Unfollow You on Twitter.”

    • Friday Finds for Writers

    by Erika Dreifus on
    4

    Treasure ChestWriting-related resources, news, and reflections to enjoy over the weekend.

  • “6 Reasons a Workshop Jolts Your Writing,” courtesy of The Writer magazine.
  • Dinty W. Moore shares some thoughts on the advantages of the MA (not just the MFA) in Creative Writing.
  • An interview with literary critic Dwight Garner.
  • Kate Hopper on her memoir’s 10-year journey to publication.
  • A Q&A with Kate Gale, managing editor of Red Hen Press.

    • Have a great weekend, everyone.

    Wednesday’s WIP: A Recent Review

    by Erika Dreifus on
    1

    textile-orly-castel-bloom-paperback-cover-artBack in January, I discovered that that The Feminist Press would be publishing Textile, an English translation of a novel by one of my favorite Israeli authors, Orly Castel-Bloom. The book was slated for release in the spring; I was thrilled to receive an assignment to review it and dug in eagerly to my review copy.

    Publication of the book was delayed, so the deadline for my review was, too. Then it wasn’t until August that my editor asked for some revisions. I complied. When a Google alert let me know that the review was published just last week, I discovered that further cuts and other revisions had been made.

    I’m always happy to have a byline in this particular publication (not to mention the paycheck). But I can’t deny that I’m disappointed that this piece ended up so very much shorter than (and otherwise different from) the original review that I worked so hard to craft. So I’m using today’s blog post to share that original version with you. I hope that you enjoy it. (more…)