Sunday Sentence

by Erika Dreifus on
2

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.”

Penn_Station1Its graceful Greek columns were sawed through and its great clocks, its carved-stone eagles, and the maiden sculptures that represented Night and Day were pulled down and taken over to New Jersey, where they were dumped in the swamps of Secaucus, like the body of a murdered mob stoolie.

Source: Kevin Baker, “21st Century Limited: The Lost Glory of America’s Railroads,” in the June 2014 issue of Harper’s. (Online availability for subscribers only.)

Again, I know I’m not supposed to offer context or commentary, but it was rather amazing to read about New York’s Penn Station, old and new (the “old” is the subject of the above-cited sentence), moments after departing from the “new” late Friday afternoon.

Friday Finds for Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
2

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

  • No-nonsense advice from “Margie” at Behind the Margins: “Wanna Quit Your Day Job? Economic Realities 101.”
  • “We call them Summer Submission Parties.” So begins Risa Polansky Shiman’s post for the Brevity blog.
  • “More than 20 unpublished poems by the late Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, most of them taking up romantic themes, have been discovered in boxes of his papers in Chile and will be published in Latin America and Spain in 2014 and 2015, according to reports from Spain.” No news yet about English translations.
  • D.G. Myers, for Books & Culture: “Perhaps the best examples [“of provocative and satisfying religious fiction”] are the work of two young Catholic novelists still in their thirties—William Giraldi and Christopher Beha.” (And then, a more personal essay by Myers on Good Letters, the blog of the journal Image.)
  • Finally, as a member of the Sara Lippmann Fan Club, I must point you to this new interview with Sara, which, as a bonus, presents the title story from her forthcoming collection, Doll Palace.

    • Happy weekend!

    Wednesday’s Work-in-Progress

    by Erika Dreifus on
    2

    This regular blog feature will return next week (suffice to say that at the moment, there is quite a lot “in-progress”–so much so that I simply can’t prepare a blog post in addition!).

    We’ll return to our regular schedule on Friday, with the “Friday Finds” post.

    Thanks for your patience and understanding!