Erika Dreifus

Each Friday, the Practicing Writing blog shares writing and publishing resources, news, and reflections to peruse over the weekend.

• Updated and expanded: Jane Friedman’s “How to Build an Author Website: Getting Started Guide.” (You can bet that I’ll be mentioning this guide to those who attend my upcoming book-publicity classes.)
• “Writers are told again and again that reading their work aloud is a powerful editing tool….But as much I understand the importance of reading aloud, I’m often loath to do it, especially for book-length manuscripts.” Still, Laura Maylene Walter recently pushed on through and read her entire novel manuscript aloud. Read all about that experience on the Kenyon Review blog.
• Craig Morgan Teicher’s latest poetry preview for NPR includes a number of oh-so-intriguing titles. (I’ll admit that Teicher’s description of John Murillo’s Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry reminded me in some ways of my own book, and I immediately added it to my tbr list.)
• Lots of intriguing backstory/process info appears in this “5 Things About Your Book” interview with Kent Garrett, co-author (with Jeanne Ellsworth) of The Last Negroes at Harvard: The Class of 1963 and the 18 Young Men Who Changed Harvard Forever.
• And there’s a fresh batch of Jewish literary links up on the My Machberet blog. (Including, by the way, a rave review of the soon-to-air HBO miniseries adaptation of Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America.)

Have a good weekend, everyone.