Erika Dreifus

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

• “On Beginnings, Belonging, and Abandoning MFA Culture” (by Megan Pillow).
• “By her early 30s she had earned a law degree from Harvard, an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a PEN/Hemingway Award for her lauded debut novel, ‘The Grass Dancer.’ Then Mona Susan Power’s world went dark….Nearly three decades later, Power has found her way home — in several senses of the word — with the publication of ‘A Council of Dolls,’ a multifaceted and deeply felt novel-in-stories drawn largely from her own fraught family history.” Read the profile by Leah Greenblatt for The New York Times (gift link provided).
• Something else for authors to worry about.
• “Unless you’re in a classroom and the instructor is being paid to read your work, or you’re in a writing group where each member has the opportunity to submit a work-in-progress and receive feedback, it’s not good form to give your work to another writer (former or current instructor or not), unless it has specifically been requested, or you’re offering to pay this person for their time and expertise.” This, and much other wisdom, in Christine Sneed’s latest Bookish post (“The Favor Business”).
• And in the latest Jewish-lit links: James McBride, Sara Lippmann, Sefaria’s 10th anniversary, and more.

Have a great weekend, everyone.