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Thursday’s Post-Publication Post: More About Book Clubs

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

As if the promise of a video visit with yours truly were not enough to entice book clubs around the world to order truckloads of copies of Quiet Americans, here’s another incentive: author Robin Black’s magnificent and generous manifesto (as I am terming it): “A Book Club Guide to Discussing Short Story Collections.”

Black, author of the acclaimed If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, explains:

I’m writing this because in the year and a half since my short story collection came out, I have had some amazing experiences discussing it with book clubs but I have also been told by many other groups that they find it hard to “tackle” story collections. First they run into a too-common reluctance to read those books at all, but then, for reasons inherent to the form, it’s also difficult to structure a conversation. There isn’t one set of characters to discuss. There isn’t one plot. There may even be stories that feel as though different authors wrote them. These things may seem obvious, but how to craft a cohesive discussion in spite of them, isn’t so clear.

And so I have been thinking about advice to give, strategies to suggest, mostly because I really do believe that although the approach may have to be be a little different, the experience of talking about stories is truly one of the great joys to be found among exchanges about literature.

Please go read Black’s suggested strategies. And then, please suggest that your club take up the cause of the short-story collection. You certainly don’t have to choose Quiet Americans. (But of course, I’ll be grateful if you do!)

The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
2
  • The fact that I live in NYC by no means makes me an expert on literary life here. So I’m delighted to see the latest addition to the Poets & Writers City Guides: New York City!
  • I’ve just finished reading an advance reading copy (provided by Coffee House Press) of Ben Lerner’s novel, Leaving the Atocha Station. Since I have no idea when I’ll be able to offer cogent commentary of my own on this most intriguing work, I’ll point you to David Shields’s contribution for the Los Angeles Review of Books in the meantime. (But stay tuned: I do have a review of another Coffee House book in the works.)
  • Fadra Nally discusses “How to Get Unfollowed on Twitter.”
  • Another social-media tidbit: In “When Students Friend Me,” Cathy Day offers a sample text that other teachers might adapt to explain their social-media policies on syllabi.
  • I’ve read a number of commentaries sparked by the recent release of the film version of Kathryn Stockett’s novel The Help. Nothing is quite like Roxane Gay’s essay for The Rumpus.
  • Kelly James-Enger suggests “5 Ways to Take Your Freelance Career Seriously.”
  • Remember my explanation re: how I got to know author Rebecca Makkai? Here’s a lovely essay that Rebecca has written about the online community where we “met.”

    • Friday Find: AP Sept. 11 Style and Reference Guide

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    This isn’t a fun find, but it’s an important one.

    Within a few weeks, we’ll commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps you are planning to write about the anniversary. Perhaps you’ve already written something and are waiting to post or publish it.

    As I learned from the Nieman Journalism Lab this week:

    To assist its members as they create that coverage, the Associated Press just released a style and reference guide whose content is dedicated to 9/11. It includes terms like “airline, airlines” (“Capitalize airlines, air lines and airways when used as part of a proper airline name. American Airlines, United Airlines”); “ground zero” (lower-case), “acceptable term for the World Trade Center site”; and names like “Osama bin Laden” (“use bin Laden in all references except at the start of a sentence…. Pronounced oh-SAH’-muh bin LAH’-din”).

    The guide is intriguing — not only as a useful tool for the many journalists who will be, in some way or another, writing about 9/11 over the next few weeks, but also as a hint at what a Stylebook can be when it’s thought of not just as a book, but as a resource more broadly. AP’s guide (official name: “Sept. 11 Style and Reference Guide”) is a kind of situational stylebook, an ad hoc amalgam of information that will be useful for a particular set of stories, within a particular span of time.

    It’s intriguing, all right. It’s remarkable. Go take a look.

    And then, go have a good, safe weekend. See you back here on Monday.

    Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled
    • First things first: The Practicing Writer newsletter alert went out to subscribers on Friday, so subscribers have had all weekend to peruse the many no-fee competitions and paying submission calls listed there. You can catch up online today.
    • “Crab Orchard Review is seeking work for our Summer/Fall 2012 issue focusing on writing exploring the people, places, history, and changes shaping the states (and *District of Columbia) in the U.S. that make up the northern mid-Atlantic and Northeast (*Maryland, *Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine) and the northern Midwest east of the Mississippi River (Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and *Minnesota). *We know we’re stretching boundaries and regions with the District of Columbia, Maryland, Delaware, and Minnesota, but we would like to see what those places bring to this exploration. We’ll head a little farther west next time around.” Note: “All submissions should be original, unpublished poetry, fiction, or literary nonfiction in English or unpublished translations in English (we do run bilingual, facing-page translations whenever possible). Please query before submitting any interview.” Submission window opens August 17 and ends November 5. Pays: “$25 (US) per magazine page ($50 minimum for poetry; $100 minimum for prose) and two copies of the issue.”
    • “The Review of English Studies (RES) is pleased to continue the sponsorship of the RES Essay Prize, launched in 1999. The aim of The RES Essay Prize is to encourage fine scholarship amongst postgraduate research students in Britain and abroad….The RES Essay Prize is open to anyone currently studying for a higher degree, in Britain or abroad, or to anyone who completed such a degree no earlier than October 2008, except employees of Oxford University Press and other persons connected to Oxford University Press.” Essays “can be on any topic or period of English literature or the English language,” in keeping with The Review of English Studies mission statement. Prize includes a cash award of GBP 250, publication of the winning essay, a subscription to *RES*, and books from Oxford University Press (worth GBP 250). Deadline: September 30, 2011. No entry fee.
    • The Harvard Library (Mass.) is looking for a Director of Communications, the University at Buffalo (N.Y.) seeks a Staff Writer/Editor for its School of Public Health & Health Professions, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City is advertising for a Senior Writer.