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Friday Finds for Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Treasure ChestWriting-related resources, news, and reflections to read over the weekend.

  • Something that still (sometimes) stymies me: the who/whom divide.
  • On the VQR blog: Kathleen Schmidt explains “what to expect when you’re expecting to hire a book publicist.”
  • Jane Roper writes about “the book that didn’t break out, and the disease that did.”
  • Happy Short Story Month! See what Fiction Writers Review has in store.
  • A dispatch from the classroom: Natalie Wexler on why many students in the D.C. public schools can’t write.
  • I’m Boston-bound today for Grub Street’s The Muse & the Marketplace. And one of my conference co-panelists, Douglas Trevor, is featured this week over on the always-excellent Books, Personally blog. Read the Q&A.
  • Finally: some cautionary words about Bancroft Press, a publisher included in the current Practicing Writer. Check writer Betsy Robinson’s comment at the end of the Publishers Weekly article also mentioned in the newsletter.

    • Happy weekend, everyone. See you back here on Monday.

    Wednesday’s Work-in-Progress: How Harvard Failures Made Me Thick-Skinned, Super-Stubborn, and Ready for a Writing Life

    by Erika Dreifus on
    14

    (As I explained at the beginning of the May issue of The Practicing Writer, where a version of this essay also appears, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my years in the Boston area. The Massachusetts phase of my life began when I arrived in Cambridge as a Harvard freshman more than 25 years ago. Little did I realize then how much – and how unexpectedly – Harvard would help me become a practicing writer. This essay describes some of those hard-won understandings. Thanks for reading.)
    Baccalaureate Service 2010
    My undergraduate college – Harvard – was a perfect place to prepare for a writing life. But not for the reasons you think.

    Not for the dizzying array of creative-writing classes (the college offered few; you had to submit a polished writing sample to compete for a spot in even introductory workshops). Not for benefits conferred by an on-campus MFA program (there wasn’t one). Not even for the vaunted connections (I was a first-generation Ivy Leaguer and only minimally “cooler” at Harvard than I’d been in high school). But even before I started seeing my classmates’ names (and seemingly just as quickly, those of younger alums) on book covers and within the pages of THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, I endured numerous experiences that could have encouraged me to give up. (more…)

    Friday Finds for Writers

    by Erika Dreifus on
    2

    Treasure ChestWriting-related resources, news, and reflections to read over the weekend.

  • Sometimes, the truth hurts. And there’s pain in this Grub Daily post, “If You Write What You Love, Will the Money Follow?”.
  • On Lisa Romeo’s blog: a guest post with tips on giving good readings.
  • Litro magazine has launched a new flash-fiction column featuring the expertise of Tania Hershman.
  • Short Story Month is nearly upon us. Do you have plans to celebrate? I’ve been remiss: I’d hoped to organize a virtual “panel” on Goodreads featuring some short-story authors of my acquaintance, but I’ve fallen woefully behind. I think that I’ll at least be able to manage a giveaway. Stay tuned! (And let me know what you may be planning.)
  • Lovely (and inspiring) dispatch from a “Poetry Utopia at the Barred Owl Retreat,” courtesy of Diane Lockward.

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

    My College Classmate Sheryl Sandberg, the VIDA Count, and Lessons on Literary Leaning In

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    Yesterday on the Virginia Quarterly Review‘s blog, as part of the current issue’s focus on “the business of literature”:

    I doubt that Knopf/Random House planned it this way, but the publication of Sheryl Sandberg’s bestselling Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead coincided with the release of the latest VIDA Count. I suspect that Sandberg herself would be interested in the data that VIDA has provided regarding publication rates of women and men in what it calls “many of the writing world’s most respected literary outlets.” (Condensed findings: In most cases, women aren’t faring well in these venues.) Strikingly, some of Sandberg’s messages can be extrapolated beyond the worlds of leadership or corporate culture and applied to the world of poets, fiction writers, and essayists, perhaps especially as VIDA has described it.

    You can read the rest of my essay over on VQRonline.

    Friday Finds for Writers

    by Erika Dreifus on
    4

    Treasure ChestWriting-related resources, news, and reflections to read over the weekend.

  • Struggling to find your “voice” as a writer? Maybe you have more voices than you’ve realized. Thought-provoking essay by Pico Iyer.
  • Lots to think about in Kevin Young’s Virginia Quarterly Review essay “Blood Nation: Half-Breeds, Maids, Porterhouses, and the Fake Memoir.” But these may be my favorite lines: “My definition of creative non-fiction is simple. It is a radically subjective account of events that objectively took place. The moment you start making up events that you know did not take place, you’re doing another sort of work. It’s called fiction.”
  • Celeste Ng writes about the deeper value of Twitter for writers.
  • On the Ploughshares blog, Roxane Gay describes her teaching practice.
  • Choice quotations from Cynthia Ozick, to mark the author’s 85th birthday this week. (h/t @dg_myers)

    • Everyone, have a good, safe, restorative weekend. See you back here on Monday.