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The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled
  • Maybe you weren’t able to make it to the recent Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) panel on “The Good Review.” Or maybe, like me, you were lucky enough to be in the audience that morning, but you’d like to revisit all of the wonderful insights that were shared that day. In either case, you’ll be glad to know that Fiction Writers Review is presenting a series of the panelists’ talks online. First up: Jeremiah Chamberlin. (Also coming this week: Charles Baxter, Stacey D’Erasmo, and Keith Taylor.)
  • The next issue of The Practicing Writer will feature an interview with author Ellen Meeropol (House Arrest). One subject touched on in the interview is the challenge of writing about politics in fiction. In this blog post, Ellen shares additional ideas on that subject.
  • In the Wall Street Journal, writing professor Dean Bakopoulos explains “How Reading Junot Diaz Can Help America Prosper.” (via @FictionWriters)
  • Interesting review-essay in the Boston Globe on writing about the death of a loved one. (via @JewishMuse)
  • And on a personal note: My precious nephew (age 4 1/2) is becoming a practicing writer! As with many other activities, writing is harder for him than it should be, and we’re all extremely proud of each and every advance. No one is prouder than his devoted Mommy (my sister).

    • Quotation of the Week: Ernest Hemingway

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    “From things that have happened . . . and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality….That is why you write and for no other reason.”

    –Ernest Hemingway

    This quotation arrived via degrees: quoted by Joyce Carol Oates, cited by Ruth Franklin, in Bookforum (with a final hat tip to Jessica Handler).

    Thursday’s Post-Publication Post

    by Erika Dreifus on
    4

    Yesterday was a great day, and I thank all of you who posted congratulations here, on Twitter, and/or on Facebook for helping to make it a very special pub date, indeed, for my short-story collection, Quiet Americans.

    Another highlight: Quiet Americans received a sage and sensitive review from Jonathan Kirsch, Books Editor for The Jewish Journal (of Greater Los Angeles).

    Here’s a snippet—one of my favorites—from the review:

    Dreifus does not confine herself to the kind of character studies and slice-of-life sketches that are the stock-in-trade of so many short-story writers. Rather, she cares deeply about history — her own family history and the larger history that we all inhabit — and that’s what makes her stories both engaging and consequential.

    “Engaging” and “consequential.” Two adjectives any writer would be delighted to see applied to her work.

    You can read the entire review here.

    The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled
  • “Oronte Churm” asked MFA directors at Michigan, Syracuse, Irvine, Alabama, the Michener Center, and Ohio University for their thoughts on digital thesis deposits. Here’s how they responded.
  • Chris Fischbach is right: listening to Norah Labiner’s reading at Prairie Lights in Iowa City is great fun. (Especially since I’ve read and reviewed Labiner’s book, German for Travelers: A Novel in 95 Lessons.)
  • Maureen Corrigan reflects on William Trevor and his newly released collection of short stories.
  • My subscriber copy of The Writer magazine arrived on Monday, and it’s quite an issue. I’m in there again (this time with a guide to the upcoming Association of Writers & Writing Programs [AWP] conference), and I’ve got some amazing company: Jim Shepard, Betsy Lerner, Dani Shapiro, and more. Check out the table of contents.
  • Also just arrived in the mail: the latest issue of Vanity Fair, which includes a lovely feature on Atlanta’s literary ladies (including Jessica Handler, one of our wonderful Winter Blog Tour hosts!).
  • Author and professor Aurelie Sheehan, in The New York Times, on Arizona.