The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

  • By now, you’ve doubtless heard that Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer has won the most recent Nobel prize for literature. But have you heard this? “Tranströmer lost his ability to speak and the use of his right arm after suffering a stroke in 1990. Since then, he has continued to play piano with one hand. According to The Independent, the poet will express himself through the piano.”
  • One of my literary lights, the stupendously gifted writer and human being Sage Cohen, wears so many hats that even I, fan that I am, had nearly forgotten one of them: Sage’s role as founder of Queen of Wands Press, which has just released Finding Compass, a poetry collection by Carolyn Martin. Check out this interview with Ms. Martin.
  • The latest news from the world of author archives: “The Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, has acquired the archive of Nobel Prize-winning writer and University of Texas at Austin alumnus J. M. Coetzee. Spanning more than 50 years, the archive traces the author’s life and career from 1956 through the present.” (via The Literary Saloon)
  • I’m eager to read through a special roundtable on “poetry and race” in Evening Will Come, a journal of poetics. (via the Poetry Foundation)
  • Hopefully, by the time The New York Review of Books publishes the second part of “A Jewish Writer in America,” which reflects a talk originally given by Saul Bellow in 1988, I’ll have been able to digest fully part one. Oh, so much to read and think about.
  • Quotation of the Week: Gish Jen, on Apple Computers & Writing

    As for whether the Apple computers changed not only who wrote, but what they wrote, I can’t speak for others. I can only say that these computers coaxed out of me an expansiveness the typewriter never did. For every writer, the leap from short story to novel is, well, a leap. It involves faith, and resources, and a conception, finally, of how much room is yours in the world. I was not a person who would have looked at a ream of paper and thought, “Sure, that is mine to fill up.” But I turned out to be a person who could keep moving a cursor until I’d filled one ream, then another. It is a truly minuscule reason, in the scheme of things, for which to celebrate and mourn Steve Jobs. Still, I add my small reason to the infinity of others.

    –Gish Jen

    Source: Jen’s lovely op-ed in last Sunday’s New York Times, “My Muse Was an Apple Computer”

    The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

  • Elise Blackwell blogs about the Squaw Valley Community of Writers (and summer writing conferences more generally).
  • Reflections on the question: What is a story?
  • Really enjoyed this inspiring and instructive interview with author and editor Matt Bell.
  • A new column on The Millions is focusing on “Post-40 Bloomers,” writers “whose first books debuted when they were 40 or older.” Hurray!
  • Last week, I had the privilege of adding my voice to others paying tribute to memorable writing teachers on the Fiction Writers Review site: I wrote about the amazing Sands Hall.
  • Quotation of the Week: Roger Ebert

    “When I write, I fall into the zone many writers, painters, musicians, athletes, and craftsmen of all sorts seem to share: In doing something I enjoy and am expert at, deliberate thoughts fall aside and it is all just there. I think of the next word no more than the composer thinks of the next note.”

    –Roger Ebert

    Source: “Roger Ebert on Writing: !5 Reflections from Life Itself,” TheAtlantic.com. For more about Ebert’s new memoir, see Harvey Freedenberg’s review for Bookreporter.

    The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

  • From The Washington Post: “What do writers think about writing? We asked authors participating in the National Book Festival to share their thoughts on a few writerly subjects. Here’s a small selection of what they had to say.”
  • The Iowa Review has launched an online Forum on Literature and Translation.
  • “There are two crucial parts to every writing career: The first is the writing and completion of your manuscript and preparing it for acquisition and publication, and the second is everything that goes along with the production, marketing, sale and distribution of your book. Knowing how all this comes together doesn’t just increase your odds of crafting a submission that will get you a deal—it also gives you a better chance of impacting the decisions that can make or break your book’s success.” Read the full article by Jerry D. Simmons here.
  • Over on the Dollars & Deadlines blog, Kelly James-Enger offers a Q&A with Gretchen Roberts on the topic of “full-time income in part-time hours.”
  • Chantal Panozzo (“Writer Abroad”) suggests a thoroughly modern character development exercise. (Hint: Facebook is involved.)
  • A couple of shamelessly self-promotional items. First, if you missed my essay on writing 9/11 fiction (it began as a conference paper, was published in 2004, and was republished this month), you can find it here. I’m also proud to have my poem, “Umbilicus,” featured over on the Adanna website, alongside many wonderful pieces on the theme of motherhood.