The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled
  • Charging admission for bookstore events. What say you?
  • On The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Arts & Academe blog, Elise Blackwell spotlights independent presses.
  • Natalie Wexler wonders if characters must be likable.
  • Unsure about connecting with editors on social media? Consider this.
  • In a similar vein, check out these sensible tips from Kelly James-Enger on how not to make a freelance friend.
  • Nice shout-out from the NewPages.com blog re: a new literary journal, Adanna. (I have a poem in the inaugural issue.)
  • Until tomorrow, everyone can access all contents of the Publishers Weekly Fall Announcements issue (excellent for book reviewers seeking a heads-up on new titles).
  • And once again on a related note: Coffee House Press has a lot to share about its “Fall Fiction Preview, BEA Recap, and Fall Fiction Galley Giveaway.”

    • A Dream Job in Jewish Journalism

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    If I weren’t already happily employed (and, ahem, somewhat older than the typical “intern”), this paid internship at Tablet would be my dream job:

    Tablet Magazine is on the hunt for an intern for our New York City office. If you have experience in journalism and are familiar with the landscape of American Jewish life, we’d love to hear from you. The intern’s focus will be on aiding contributing editor Jeffrey Goldberg with his forthcoming (forth-joining?) blog, but other tasks may be required and other opportunities available as well.

    As of now, we are looking for someone to begin in mid-August, and are flexible about time.

    If you become the lucky intern, please let me know! I may ask you for a guest post here on My Machberet!

    Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities

    by Erika Dreifus on
    2
  • Opportunity for a long-form nonfiction writer: “Gothamist is interested in adding long-form non-fiction features to our website. Since we’re new to this game, we’re going to dip our toes in the water slowly, by publishing a single feature next month. How it will work: We will pay one journalist $5,000 to write a long-form non-fiction piece in the 5,000 to 15,000 word range. Subject: Something relevant to our audience of over one million 20-36 year-old readers in New York, timely but with a shelf-life longer than a week. We’re open to any topic, although we would like something that could be well-illustrated with photos or infographics. We’ll cover the editing and production and then publish the piece to the various eBook singles platforms (Kindle, Apple, etc.) with a reasonable price: $1 to $3. Then we’ll handle advertising the piece on our NYC site. If this experiment makes a profit, we’ll share them with the writer once we’ve recouped our initial costs. Will this work? We’re not sure—but we want to find out.” Proposal deadline is coming up fast: July 1. (via GalleyCat)
  • Since I’ve long believed that “To Build a Fire” is one of the all-time great short stories in existence, I’m sorry to share news of a fiction contest named for its author only a few days before the July 1 deadline! But better late than never, right? From Up Here magazine (Canada): “Can you spin gruesome, harrowing and heartfelt tales of misadventure and drama in the spirit of legendary Klondike gold-rush era adventure writer Jack London? If yes, we want to hear from you. Here’s your chance to write the next best North of Sixty adventure story. The contest is open to all, and the winning story will be published in the September 2011 issue of Up Here. Along with publication, the first-place author will win $750, second-place wins $250.” (Prizes are presumably conferred in Canadian dollars.) There is no entry fee. (via @femministas)
  • Attention, Britons: English PEN is offering “a fulfilling three month internship from July to September/October 2011, working on a range of challenging issues with a diverse team based in an exciting new centre for literature, literacy and free speech.” Even better: This is a paid internship! Application deadline is July 1. (Are you getting the idea that July 1 is a popular deadline date? I sure am!)
  • “Underwired publishes personal essays (800-1200 words) every month and is always looking for new contributors. Essays should somehow relate to the chosen theme for the month and be on topics of interest to women. Underwired buys one-time rights, and payment is $100.” Upcoming themes include “The Budget Issue” (deadline is–wait for it–July 1) and “The #5 Issue” (the latter celebrates the publication’s fifth anniversary). (via @femministas)
  • Do you know about The Evertalis? “We accept flash fiction (max. 1000 words) and short poetry such as haiku, senryu, tanka, Englyn etc. We will also accept non-formalist and custom construct short poetry no longer than 15 lines – it is expected that your submission has a gradient of surrealism, or at the very least is not overly conformist to any specific genre.” Pays: $10/poem and $.01/word for flash fiction. No simultaneous submissions. (via Duotrope.com)
  • From the Community-Word Project: “CWP is looking for energetic teaching artists who are committed to bringing the best, high quality arts programming to grades 1-12 in NYC public schools. In addition to dedication to practicing their own art form(s), Teaching Artists (TAs) interested in working with CWP must be 1) committed to working with young people from underserved communities, 2) committed to continually improving their teaching practice and 3) interested in collaboration and experimentation with other artists and art forms, as our residencies are multi-disciplinary and designed and implemented by two teaching artists (i.e., writer and visual artist) working in collaboration with classroom teachers.” Apply by July 5.
  • By this time next week, The Practicing Writer newsletter will have gone out to nearly 3800 subscribers. As always, it will be packed with opportunities and submission calls. Are you on the subscriber list?
  • Southern New Hampshire University seeks a Digital Publisher, Northwestern University (Ill.) is looking for an Associate Director of Editorial Content, and Duke University (N.C.) is advertising a position for an Associate Director of Communications.

    • Books About the Dreyfus Affair

    by Erika Dreifus on
    1

    I think I may have come up with a new (albeit irregular) feature for this blog, one that holds cross-over appeal for my other blog (on writing and publishing). And it’s this: Every so often, I should come up with a short list of books that I’ve read and would recommend on a given literary-historical topic. (And as far as this blog is concerned, if it’s a Jewish-literary-historical topic, so much the better!)

    Let us begin with books about the Dreyfus Affair (named for its ill-fated victim, Captain Alfred Dreyfus). And that’s because ever since I found out (via Josh Lambert) that a new novel connected with this major episode in world/French/Jewish history will be on shelves soon–Susan Daitch’s Paper Conspiracies–I’ve been recalling other books that I’ve read and remember that are also embedded in this material.

    A bit of background: While earning my Ph.D. in Modern French history, I prepared a “special field” for my general examinations in French literature, and within that area, I focused on political literature. It was during that period in my studies that I dove into the literature surrounding the Dreyfus Affair, among other événements. I was lucky to work with some wonderful faculty on this project, including the brilliant Susan Suleiman, whose article “The Literary Significance of the Dreyfus Affair” (in Norman L. Kleeblatt, ed., The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth and Justice, [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987], pp. 117-139) is a must-read for anyone interested in this subject.

    I will add, too, that whenever I am in France and need to introduce myself, and my listeners appear to have trouble understanding me (my spoken French is not up to the level anyone might hope or expect), I say, “Dreifus, comme le capitaine.” That usually does the trick.

    So here are a few titles to which I remain attached. (more…)