Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

Three quick things.

1. THANK YOU

First things first: Thanks so much to everyone who commented and corresponded with me last week about both of the Birthright-related questions that I raised in that set of Midweek Notes. I value all of the input, and I’m happy to tell you that I was able to complete the survey and, as of Monday, sent it back to the web designer with your comments.

2. Newly Published Poem (more…)

Words of the Week

Last week, I attended, from the comfort of my own desk, a Jewish Women’s Archive webinar on “Rethinking the History of American Jewish Women,” a conversation between Professor Pamela S. Nadell and Dr. Judith Rosenbaum. Their discussion focused on Professor Nadell’s America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today, newly available from W.W. Norton, which I’ve now begun reading.

Did you miss it? Luckily, there’s a recording! (more…)

Midweek Notes from This Practicing Writer

Three quick things:

cover of As One Fire Consumes Another1. Blurb basics. John Sibley Williams, whose forthcoming collection As One Fire Consumes Another I’m helping to publicize, has articulated some sage advice for acquiring your dream endorsements, and this week, those suggestions appear over on Trish Hopkinson’s website.

This may also be a good time to re-up a post of my own, which offers a case study of a successful endorsement (“blurb”) request.

Finally, in a Twitter exchange after John’s post went live, Trish pointed me toward additional writing on the subject of blurbs from Diane Lockward, poet and publisher. (more…)

Sunday Sentence

Chicago and Lake MichiganIn 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.”

Lake Michigan, impossibly blue, the morning light bouncing toward the city.

Source: Rebecca Makkai, The Great Believers: A Novel—at the start of a chapter unlike anything I’ve read before.