Archive for Featured Writing

Home » Practicing Writing » Featured Writing » Page 465

Quotation of the Week: Elinor Lipman

by Erika Dreifus on
2

Actually, you’ll find multiple priceless quotations within the article I’m about to cite. Here’s just one, within the rubric of “guidelines for authors”:

1. Never, ever read longer than 20 minutes. Fifteen is better. Ten minutes if there are more than two authors on the docket. Practice reading in the privacy of your home using your microwave oven timer. Note that 20 pages do not equal 20 minutes; 20 pages, especially the too-beautiful kind, go on forever.

Source: “Elinor Lipman Provides a Guide to Author Anxieties” (thanks to ThereseWalsh for the find).

Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled
  • From @AlgonquinBooks: “We always accept manuscript submissions–here’s how to do it: http://tinyurl.com/3498gly.”
  • Writers living in Los Angeles County: If you can get your application together in the next few days you may want to consider trying for a residency at the Annenberg Community Beach House on Santa Monica Beach. The residency includes ten weeks (November 15-January 24) to work in a seaside office and confers a $1,500 honorarium. Application deadline is 5 p.m. on Friday, September 24, 2010.
  • Attention, Canadian writers! The application deadline for the Berton House Writers’ Retreat residencies (located in Dawson City, Yukon) is October 1, 2010. There is no application fee indicated. Writers are housed (at no cost) in the boyhood home of author Pierre Berton. Award also includes a three-month honorarium of $6,000, plus travel costs. Applicants must have published at least one book and must be “established in any literary creative discipline.”
  • Several paying internships (including one Diversity Internship) are available at the Chronicle of Higher Education (Washington, D.C.). Application deadline: October 8, 2010.
  • The 2010 NC State Short Story Contests will be judged by Madison Smartt Bell. Competitions for longer (up to 5000 words) and shorter (up to 1200) words charge no entry fees and award cash prizes. Open to NC residents who have not had a book published. Deadline: October 18, 2010.
  • ‘Tis the season for colleges and universities to post teaching job announcements. Let’s begin with Oklahoma State University, which is looking for an assistant professor in creative writing (creative nonfiction focus) and an associate professor/professor in poetry.
  • Portland State University welcomes applications for a tenure-track assistant professorship in creative writing (poetry focus).
  • Christopher Newport University (Va.) seeks an assistant professor of English to teach creative writing (“successful candidates should possess a broad knowledge of creative writing [fiction, poetry, playwriting, screenwriting]”).
  • Framingham State University (Mass.) is looking for an assistant professor of creative writing/first-year writing/literature.
  • Georgia Southern University seeks an assistant professor of creative writing.
  • From St. Lawrence University (N.Y.): “Fiction or creative non-fiction writers with significant publications and teaching experience are invited to apply for the position of Viebranz Visiting Professor of Creative Writing for the academic year 2011-2012.”
  • Antioch University-Los Angeles seeks a core faculty member (primary specialty in creative nonfiction) for its low-residency MFA program in creative writing.
  • Colleges and universities offer plenty of opportunities for nonteaching jobs for writers, too. See, for example, Kent State University (Ohio)’s call for a Writer, Marketing Communications; Ithaca College (N.Y.)’s advertisement for a Senior Editor; and
    Columbia University (N.Y.)’s posting for a Science Writer.

    • Friday Find: A Plethora of Prompts

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    Need a little something to help jumpstart your writing? Why not peruse this prompt-packed article of mine, which is part of the September 2010 WOW! Women on Writing “Creativity Carnival” issue. You’ll find plenty of recommendations for print and web-based exercises and prompts, plus some hints on how they can be helpful to your writing practice. It’s a pretty good article, if I do say so myself!

    Have a good weekend, everyone. See you back here on Monday.

    Thursday’s Pre-Publication Post: News from My Publisher

    by Erika Dreifus on
    1

    Today’s post is not really about my book. Rather, I want to take a moment to share some news from my publisher, Last Light Studio, which has just announced the next title that will be published after my collection, Quiet Americans (which will be released in January 2011), and Jane Roper‘s novel, Eden Lake (coming in May). (Drumroll, please!)

    Our books will be followed by a novel, The Edge of Maybe, by Ericka Lutz. The Edge of Maybe will be published in 2012, and it is being described as “a novel of possibility that encompasses both the sheer bigness and smallness — food, yoga, drinking, cooking, sex, self-cutting, parenting, motel-life, and finally going for broke — of middle class life at the edge of the 21st century.”

    Congratulations to Ericka Lutz! She’s someone whose name I know from her Literary Mama bylines, and I’m happy to have her join our little Last Light Studio publishing family.

    The Wednesday Web Browser

    by Erika Dreifus on
    1

    Welcome to our Wednesday online gleanings.

    • The film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go opens today. The novel was amazing (though it couldn’t top The Remains of the Day). I’m never sure about seeing adaptations of admired novels. The Remains of the Day-the-movie certainly didn’t disappoint, but that doesn’t mean this movie won’t. Plus, you have to admit that Never Let Me Go has a pretty creepy premise. I don’t know. Are you planning to see the film? Have you already read the book?
    • A new NPR column will track paperback releases. (via @book_tour)
    • Reported widely: The Wall Street Journal is launching a book-review section.
    • It is Book Blogger Appreciation Week (BBAW)! Thank you, book bloggers!
    • David Abrams is on to something (see his comment on this post). The Writer’s Almanac reliably presents accessible and strong stuff. Case in point: Monday’s “A Difference of Fifty-Three Years,” by Noel Peattie.
    • Looking for an academic job? Here are some helpful hints for creating and maintaining your cv.
    • Sometimes, that connection with a single reader really is what matters. During my senior year in college, I wrote an honors thesis that didn’t earn the best grades or win the top prizes. But somewhere along the way, it was read by David Riesman (then an emeritus professor), who found it interesting enough to write me a complimentary note (which I still have–this was before e-mail) and invite me to his home to discuss the issues I’d written about. So when I saw this appreciation of Riesman’s own magnum opus in The Chronicle Review this week, lots of fond memories resurfaced.
    • And while we’re combining writing and academics…here’s an intriguing “report from the borderland between history and journalism.”