Articles Tagged with #writing
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Haters Gonna Hate
This Is Not a George Plimpton Interview
Every artist deals with critics differently—Richard Ford spitting on Colson Whitehead, for example. But the rule is to avoid direct contact. Not for John Warner, debut novelist, who decided to seek out the man behind his worst review.
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Sound Advice
Ornithology
Naturally, I have to procrastinate first, but at least I’m procrastinating intelligently (or so I tell myself) by reviewing Anne Lamott’s sublime Bird by Bird: Some...
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The Sports Page
The Procreant Urge
Ted Williams’s last game for the Red Sox was almost a flop. But it provided fuel for one of the best sports essays of all time—until the author started tinkering. On baseball, The Simpsons, and the creative impulse to never stop.
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The Writing Life
Picture Me Not Posting
If distractions poison a writer’s ambitions, then surely a summer with no internet access is the antidote?
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Writing on the Wall
Tempest in an Inkpot
Don’t be fooled by the hand-lettering trend in movie posters and book covers—cursive is dead. Who cares? A million angry commenters around the web who extol the virtues of loops and curls. But the traditional form has a history that’s less than precious.
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Birnbaum V.
Jim Shepard
Our man in Boston and Jim Shepard, the author most recently of You Think That’s Bad, discuss whacko projects, researching short stories by jet, and how much gold it takes for a writer to dump Knopf’s Gary Fisketjon.
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TMN Talks
Nom de Plume
Ciuraru has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications. She has also edited...
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Personal Essays
Caught Telling Fiction
The gap between literary and historical fiction is mostly a marketing ploy—at least until a novelist meets a survivor of her story’s plot.
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Interviews
A Conversation With Philip Graham
As lightbulbs are to the moon, first stories are to finished books. John Warmer chats with the writer Philip Graham, his former professor, about finding topics, developing mentors, and reaching readers.
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Profiles
By Any Other Name
Writer seeks pen name: something simple, nothing dippy, and preferably one that avoids implying a lawyer who savors puns.
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Profiles
Beer and Loathing
For agents and publishers, the Frankfurt Book Fair is publishing’s biggest event: part conclave, mostly marathon, and all business. It is absolutely no place for an aspiring author, as we discover.
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Personal Essays
Annie Dillard and the Writing Life
Writers aren’t born, they’re made—from practice, reading, and a lot of caffeine. And sometimes tutelage.