Wednesday’s Work-in-Progress

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Bookhampton
Well, I finally finished and submitted that review-essay assignment I’ve been talking about. I’ve also begun sending out the new poem I mentioned here not long ago. And I’m still hopeful about that literary humor piece–waiting for news back from some editors on that.

Meantime, I’ve just returned from a few lovely days visiting family. We made multiple visits to a local bookshop, where I snapped the photo to the left. Thought that you’d all appreciate it.

More next week!

Words of the Week: David Horovitz

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

In which Horovitz imagines an all-too-unlikely statement from the U.N. Security Council:

“Members of the United Nations Security Council commend Israel on the innovative technology behind the Iron Dome missile defense system, which is proving so mercifully successful in intercepting relentless rocket salvoes fired indiscriminately at Israel’s citizens from the Gaza Strip.

The Council recognizes with profound dismay that the approximately 1,000 rockets launched at Israel by Hamas and other terrorist groups in the Strip over the past seven days were designed to kill and maim the people of Israel, and to terrorize the entire nation, in pursuit of Hamas’s hideous stated goal of destroying Israel. Members of the Council shudder at the thought of the widespread loss of life and devastation these hundreds of rockets were intended to cause, and would have caused, in the absence of the Israeli missile defense system. The Council cautions that terrorist organizations in Gaza and elsewhere can be relied upon to seek new means to wreak such devastation upon Israel and its people, including by evading Iron Dome and other defenses, and offers any assistance Israel may need in continuing to thwart such pernicious efforts.”

Read the rest of this remarkable “Statement Not Issued by the U.N. Security Council”.

Sunday Sentence

by Erika Dreifus on
3

In which I participate in David Abrams’s “Sunday Sentence” project, sharing the best sentence I’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”

“She transferred at the toll plaza and rode all over San Francisco, past neighborhoods of small yellow or pink or cream houses shouldered together, and Asian people with shopping carts, and hulking warehouses, and tough-looking streets, and parks, and traffic, and stores selling the whole world, and big humpy hills, and fog that made the bus windows drip and then a few blocks later unraveled into sunshine.”

Source: Jean Thompson, The Humanity Project

Friday Finds for Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
2

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

  • Bonnie Tsui describes what happened when she “accepted a friend’s offer to share an office at a longtime writers’ collective and began writing in the company of others a few days a week.”
  • Speaking of writers in the company of others: Take a listen to this graduating speech delivered by Sophronia Scott at the most recent commencement ceremony of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program.
  • “How to Create, Publish, and Market an Anthology (and why you’d want to)”–thanks to @JaneFriedman for leading me to this one.
  • Lovely post by Ellen Meeropol on her favorite reads in 2014 (so far).
  • “The New Yorker is overhauling its website and making all the articles it has published since 2007 available free for three months before introducing a paywall for online subscribers.”