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Orange Roses Lucy Ives Ahsahta Press, September 2013 104 pages $18.00 With the proliferation of graduate programs in creative writing, the day approaches when most poetry published in the United States will have been written by people with graduate degrees in writing poetry—a prospect that may launch a thousand jeremiads. But I will not complain,…
Santiago, an elderly Cuban fisherman, has gone 84 days without a catch. His apprentice, Manolin, still likes him, but his parents have made him go work with a more successful fisherman. So on day 85 of his Bad Luck Streak, Santiago sails his skiff out alone, beyond the usual shallows.
If you’re on Twitter, you likely noticed that a new tool took over the twitterverse last week, allowing everyone to identify and re-post their very first tweets. My first? Ahem: I retweeted a friend’s observation that “The writers of the show He-man were frickin’ geniuses”. I mean, obvs my friend spoke truth. Still, by taking that particular occasion to speak up, I’ll…
Wromance, a word I invented, refers to a friendship between writers at its ideal—respectful, supportive, and considerate. You champion each other but never abuse your relationship. Friendship is not confused for a professional agreement or misconstrued for therapy. Your commonality may lie in a shared passion, but it does not overshadow the human elements of…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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