Big thanks to The Tishman Review for including my poem "Postlude" amongst their nominees for the Best of the Net Anthology, a project of Sundress Publications.
Check out the full list of nominees and read their words: www.thetishmanreview.com
When, if ever, should you write for free? Sometimes “exposure” can be more valuable than payment. Jane Friedman weighs in on this subject in an insightful post on her blog.
All aspiring writers should check out this comprehensive guide from Jane Friedman on how, why, and when to write a query letter.
Good read from Lit Reactor: Keith Rawson explores 4 Ways To Develop Your Non-Fiction Voice.
Check out this interesting piece from Scientific American on where creativity comes from.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-creativity-comes-from/
“Writing, on its own, isn’t bravery.” So very true.
It’s one of many truths on display in this beautiful post by Scott Nadelson.
http://hawthornebooks.com/blog/article/scott-nadelson-the-next-scott-nadelson-a-life-in-progress
A portmanteau is a word formed by the merging of sounds and meanings of two different words. Switched-on-Gutenberg has published my poem dedicated to these faux words - “Reporting Live from Portmanteaupia” – in its Issue 23.
Switched-on Gutenberg: A Global Poetry Journal has been e-publishing the best poetry it can find since 1995. This is the fourth time they’ve published my work, and I definitely appreciate the chance to contribute again…but those who know me know this is all a ploy to get something legitimately published with the word “incognegro” in it…
So it seems we all plagiarize, whether we set out to or not. Interesting. This New York Times article on cryptomnesia explains the science that drives secret copycat within us all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/27/science/cryptomnesia-demi-lovato-plagiarism.html?_r=0
From Poets & Writers: At the University of Pittsburgh, poets Dawn Lundy Martin, Terrance Hayes, and Yona Harvey recently established the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics -- a creative think tank dedicated to studying, archiving, and promoting the work of African American poets.
Writing with Color is a blog that helps authors to avoid tropes and stereotypes when writing characters of various races, ethnicities, and religions.
Lincoln Michel's article "Everything You Wanted to Know About Book Sales (but Were Afraid to Ask)" over on Electric Literature is a solid read. It provides what is probably the closest any of us will get to a decent explanation of the vagaries of book-sale definitions and numbers. Check it out…
Panopoly is an online literary zine that features “a wide-ranging and impressive array of writing.”
My piece “It Is What It Is” is among the works included in Issue 4. If you have a chance, check out this poem/rant that was inspired by an old school rapper…
Jean Ho’s NPR piece, “Diversity In Book Publishing Isn’t Just About Writers — Marketing Matters, Too,” brings up another facet in the need for increased diversity within the literary world. A good read.
I found this article about nine women nonfiction pioneers, including Roxane Gay, Wendy C. Ortiz, and Eula Biss, to be inspirational. I’ve been experimenting with writing more nonfiction lately, especially as my personal muse has seemingly drifted from poetry towards more prose.
Not only did this article give me some candidates for my books to read list, it was also interesting to learn about women writers who are challenging convention and exploring new territory. I want to find my angle and do something unconventional like these authors have in order to find my niche in nonfiction. After all, we all have a story to tell…
http://www.bustle.com/articles/150778-9-women-writers-who-are-breaking-new-nonfiction-territory
From The New York Times blog: How reading books corresponds to living a longer life. Just another benefit of reading. Sweet.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2016/08/03/read-books-live-longer/?_r=0&refere
This Essence article is In praise of the late James Alan McPherson, the first black writer to win the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.
http://www.essence.com/2016/08/01/james-alan-mcpherson-first-black-writer-win-pulitzer-prize-dies
In Writers Recommend, poet Lo Kwa Mei-en describes what she does when she cannot write a single word:
"I have taken to picking up a book from my past that I have been hungering to reread and typing it out word for word, at a speed slow enough to feel the words relating to each other and hear new things in their music that I had not heard before. I will retype another's book until I feel love and not despair."
From the BookBaby Blog: 21 Tips to Beat Writer’s Block.
Some wonderful tactics that can be employed for when your motivation or ideas for writing dry up. #14 and #15 are standard protocol for me.
Here's a great read that I found on TheAtlantic.com: “American Literature Needs Indie Presses.”
There’s a lot to appreciate about this insightful article by Nathan Scott McNamara which focuses on the role indie presses now have in the literary world. Check it out…
“Hockey mom” and “Scooby Snack” are just two of the new words in the Oxford English Dictionary. I don’t know…it all seems a bit much to me. Slang is slang for a reason.
http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-icymi-dictionary-20160707-snap-story.htm