Month: December 2013
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A Magnificent Sprawl
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski Quite often it’s the flawed novels that stick to your ribs, not those approaching literary perfection, and this book is a great, magnificently flawed novel that I’ll find hard to forget. The story is one of the Sawtelle family, principally son Edgar, who was born without an…
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Does Reading Actually Change The Brain?/Futurity
This article tells us that reading stories puts us into the story in a way more real than we would have thought. Fractal theory in turn tells us that certain systems (let’s call them stories) repeat infinitely, tons of these systems (stories) embedded in others. Why were even primitive humans fascinated with stories? I have a…
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Let Us Inspire You
Poets & Writers, January/February, 2014 To my mind P&W struggles to be worthwhile to the writer who has been around the block a few times. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of spending a rainy afternoon reading. I love charts – especially when they indicate something substantial, and the mag’s “Anatomy of Awards” article…
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Blue Collar Liberalism
Harper’s Magazine, December 2013 Harper’s continues to espouse an ethos that fits well in the jeans and work shirts of the laboring class. This cuts against the grain of most progressive thinking in the early days of the twenty-first century, but who’s to say they’re wrong? Thomas Frank bemoans (slightly) the political gentrification of Chicago,…
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The Brave New Future
Note: I occasionally post on magazines; I’ve always read them, and would seriously bemoan their passing. While I don’t have the time to do all the mags justice that I might have an interest in, I do try to post regularly on the ones I think have the most substance to offer readers. …
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How to Write: A Year in Advice from Franzen, King, Hosseini, and More/The Atlantic
If you’re a writer working as we always do – alone – or a discriminating reader seeking to understand the subterranean depths of a book, i.e., how the writer does what he/she does, this article from The Atlantic should prove edifying. TheAtlantic Visit my website here, where you’ll have an opportunity to download an audio eversion…
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Smooth Writing, Smooth Read
Pronto, by Elmore Leonard I hadn’t read an Elmore Leonard book in ages, definitely not since I began writing full time, and I’m planning to write a sequel to one of my mystery novels next year, so I decided to read something by him again, to size up his chops. He wrote Pronto toward the…