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Toscanelli’s Ray
This review was contributed by Roderick Vincent. Toscanelli’s Ray Wallis Wilde-Menozzi Cadmus Editions, April 2013 345 pages $16.95 Wallis Wilde-Menozzi lived in the U.S. and England before moving to Italy in 1981. Perhaps it is this confluence of international perspectives that enlighten the philosophical elements latent in her writing. After publishing Mother Tongue, a memoir,…
Writers With Responsibilities: Be Who You Are
Dear Sally, Do you have the magic spell that can inspire me to write again? I have not written anything in so long. Whenever I write about parenting or families, I feel like “this has all been said before. Why write about it?” I also find that it’s been harder and harder to come up…
Writing Lessons: Jackie Mercurio
In our Writing Lessons series, writers and writing students will discuss lessons learned, epiphanies about craft, and the challenges of studying writing. This week, we hear from Jackie Mercurio, a student in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College. Jackie’s creative nonfiction will be appearing in the May issue of Good Housekeeping, and you can also follow…
The Ploughshares Round-Down: Is It True You Can’t Make Any Money Writing Books?
When I was making the switch last year from being an editor to being an agent, I heard from older agents that I was making a huge mistake. Advances are shrinking, they said. Midlist authors are going without contracts, and everybody is self-publishing. The whole industry is falling apart! One suggested I should find a…
WORKSHOP OF FIRE!!!!
It’s your senior year of college. What kind of writer are you? Do you start writing a story eight hours before it’s due? Do you fictionalize your latest fight with your jerk-face manager or diva housemate? Does every one of your stories read like a screenplay? Like a poem? Do you write to make your…
Story as Architecture / Architecture as Story
“Think of revision as architecture rather than interior decorating,” my teacher Sonia Pilcer used to tell her Writers’ Block class at the West Side YMCA Writer’s Voice. Narrative as architecture is a useful analogy. Does your story stand on its own? Can its doors open and close? Is it solid or will it fly away at…
The Best Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Three Small Town Stories” by Dinah Cox
I’ve recently become friends with a new handful of people, and out of this group, one woman in particular. Then, over the last weekend, I got to see some old friends from grad school, and in talking about our lives and the new people we’ve met since we graduated, I got around to explaining what…
Grant Boxing Your Favor: On Joyce Carol Oates’ On Boxing
Under Review: On Boxing by Joyce Carol Oates (2006, Harper Perennial, 271 pages) It’s an awesome and unlikely image: Joyce Carol Oates, the gaunt and whispery living legend of fiction, eagerly and appreciatively watching Mike Tyson—yes, that Mike Tyson—spar and grunt his way through his daily training session in quiet Catskill, New York. This, followed by a…