Whether you’ll be snowed in this weekend or not, you may appreciate the opportunity to peruse some compilations of top writing blogs. I’ve recently learned that Practicing Writing appears on two such lists, Top 100 Creative Writing Blogs and Top 100 Blogs to Improve Your Writing in 2010. We’re in some pretty impressive company, so I’m grateful and glad. Have a great weekend, and see you back here on Monday!
As I mentioned yesterday, I’m once again enrolled in an online poetry class, and last week’s lesson included material and assignments on titles. One assignment asked us to “Choose a title that already exists and then write a poem to match it.” We were given a bunch of existing titles to consider. We were also encouraged to look up the original poet’s version once we’d completed our own and see how the works compared.
So I thought I’d provide you with something of a twist. Here are the titles of some of my published poetry and prose. See if any of them spark any writing for you (I’d love to know if they do). I’m giving you titles only for works that can be located online, so please go ahead and look up the words that follow these titles if you’re so inclined. Enjoy!
“For Services Rendered”
“Floating”
“Rio, 1946”
“Stars and Stripes—Forever”
“Vigilance”
“In Praise of Polyglossia”
“Solar Damage”
“Mannheim”
“Diaspora”
“American Love Sonnet”
“The only way to write a book, I’m fond of telling people, is to actually write a book. That’s how you write a book.”
–Anne Enright
Q & A after a reading from The Gathering
Seattle Public Library, February 19, 2008
Source: Quoterly.net, “quotes to write by,” a resource from Angela Jane Fountas
If you’ve ever been stymied by the happy “assignment” of writing your own contributor’s note, you’ll appreciate poet Diane Lockward’s list of likes and dislikes as one who reads them. I think that the list covers a number of useful points. Not surprisingly, Diane’s focus is poetry, but what she has written here applies just as well to notes by writers in other genres.
In the reliable words of a security guard who greets me as I arrive at my office building: “Happy Friday,” everyone! See you back here on Monday. (If you miss me over the weekend, you’re likely to find at least one or two new tweets over the next couple of days.)
From the Writers’ Institute at the Graduate Center of The City University of New York:
“Come hear Chris Cox from The Paris Review, Priscilla Gilman from Janklow & Nesbit, Hugo Lindgren from New York Magazine, David Propson from The Week Magazine, and Eben Shapiro from The Wall Street Journal discuss how to craft a great (and perfect) pitch. Feel free to bring along anyone interested as well as all the questions you’ve been dying to ask.”
DATE: Wednesday, February 3rd from 5:30 to 7:30
PLACE: Segal Theater, at the Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue (and 34th)