Quotation of the Week: Julia Alvarez
“For me, the writing life doesn’t just happen when I sit at the writing desk. It is a life lived with a centering principle, and mine is this: that I will pay close attention to this world I find myself in. ‘My heart keeps open house,’ was the way the poet Theodore Roethke put it in a poem. And rendering in language what one sees through the opened windows and doors of that house is a way of bearing witness to the mystery of what it is to be alive in this world.”
–Julia Alvarez, quoted in 1998 in The Writer magazine, with the quotation republished in “Great Writing Tips from 125 Years of The Writer,” in the magazine’s April 2012 issue.
Monday Markets/Jobs/Opportunities for Writers
Friday Find: The Art of Long-Form Journalism
I’m so glad that The Writers’ Institute at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York records its events. That’s how I got to catch one of the events I wasn’t able to get to in person: a panel on “The Art of Long-Form Journalism,” introduced and moderated by Christopher Cox, senior editor at Harper’s and former fiction editor at The Paris Review. The featured guests include: Joan Acocella, Rivka Galchen, Alex Ross and David Samuels. Watching it is a pretty nice way to spend about 77 minutes. Maybe you’ll do so this weekend.
Enjoy. See you back here on Monday!
Thursday’s Work-in-Progress: The Grumpy Writer, Or Where to Publish Your Rants & Complaints
What’s the saying? Don’t get mad–get even.
For me, the adage might be adjusted: Don’t get mad–get writing. (And maybe even get paid.)
Over time, I seem to have found a particular way to cope with things that annoy and irritate me: I write about them. Most of the time, I’ve gained a check along with the byline.
This week, a short piece (dare I call it flash nonfiction?) was posted on The New York Times‘s City Room blog, in a recurring feature called “Complaint Box.” A few months ago, I sold a short article-essay to The Writer in which I vented certain Twitter-focused frustrations. And let’s not forget some earlier examples, such as my rejoinder to a workshop leader who mocked the use of “foreign words” in fiction, or my argument against the equally misguided classmate who told me that I shouldn’t be incorporating “current events” into my short stories, either.
Of course, as my own examples show, it’s not impossible to place this writing–essentially a kind of essay–in a variety of publications, including literary and niche magazines. But I do try to take note of specific calls and opportunities to publish rants, peeves, and other opinion-driven pieces. Here’s a short list of a few such venues (I’ve limited the list to publications that specify that they pay their writers). (more…)