Finds for Writers
Most Fridays the Practicing Writing blog shares writing and publishing resources, news, and reflections to peruse over the weekend. But it’s been an excruciating week for so many of us. And frankly, I’ve paid next-to-no attention to garden-variety news from the writing and publishing spheres.
On Wednesday, however, I received an email from Facing History and Ourselves, a Boston-based global nonprofit organization that I’ve admired for many years. The email introduced a “mini-lesson” titled “Processing Attacks in Israel and the Outbreak of War in the Region.”
The resource isn’t perfect. (What resource is?) But one of its segments impressed me as something that, though intended for educators and students, could be clarifying for writers as well, in our work and in the rest of our lives. It’s a section titled “Avoiding Antisemitic and Islamophobic Tropes in Discussing Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”
- This week I ran across two fine pieces about teaching writing online: Nancy Davidoff Kelton’s “33 Reasons Virtual Teaching Has Made Me a Better Writing Instructor” and Susan Shapiro’s “What Teaching Online Classes Taught Me About Remote Learning.”
- A new Lorrie Moore short story is always a notable occasion; in this Q&A, Moore discusses “Face Time,” her story in this week’s The New Yorker, which is set amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Over on the Ploughshares blog, they’ve re-upped a piece by Frances Katz on the influence of Vladimir Nabokov on the writing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who studied with him when she was an undergraduate).
- I’ll admit that I’m lacking the wherewithal required for my own perusal of the latest installment of the “Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers”—but if you’re ready for it, it’s been posted.
- I always pay attention when a “general-interest” or “mainstream” literary magazine spotlights Jewish writing (it happens so rarely!). So I’ve bookmarked PANK magazine’s “Jewish Diaspora Folio” for reading (this weekend, if all goes well). That link, and more, can be found in the latest Jewish Literary Links on the My Machberet blog.
Have a good weekend, everyone.
I did not like the lorrie moore story in the new yorker. very sketchy of characters mentioned and blah ending. I love it when a story rocks!