Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2015 i The Writer

LATELY, I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT the places where writers live – or have lived – and what that does to a house and to those who inhabit the house later. My neighborhood has been home to a ridiculous number of historically important writers: William Dean Howells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Anne Bradstreet, Margaret Fuller, Robert Frost, E.E. Cummings, Harriet Jacobs, T. S. Eliot. Often, I take a break from my own work and stroll by these spots, wondering what it would have been like to live next door to one of these big brains. Recently, I was discussing landmarks with a student, who revealed that Eliot had lived in her apartment building. He had lived in one of my rental homes, too, and we compared stories. Did he sit here? Write…

Last fall, I led an onstage conversation with Jake Silverstein, editor of The New York Times Magazine, about what makes a story not just a natural for his magazine but a narrative for his audience. He, after all, is a journalist with an MFA, an editor with a taste for the long-and-winding, the author of a book subtitled “a chronicle in fact and fiction.” As a writer, Silverstein has explored the porous boundary between memoir and the novel. As an editor, he has displayed an unquenchable thirst for deeply reported articles that dig deep into factual reality and, using the techniques of fiction, spin a great yarn. His favorite example is Pamela Colloff ’’s “The Innocent Man,” a truecrime tale about an Austin citizen who spent 25 years wrongfully imprisoned…

AN EXCERPT FROM PAMELA COLLOFF’S TWO-PART SERIES Monday, October 3, 2011, was Michael’s 8,995th day in prison. It would be his last. He spent the morning giving away the few items he had that had made life more tolerable—a radio, an oscillating fan, a pair of sneakers—and took his final walk around the yard. That afternoon he was led from his dorm to a holding cell where he would spend the night before being transported back to Georgetown for his release. As a guard walked him through the dorm, he heard the rumble of applause. Over the years, Michael had earned the respect of his fellow inmates. He was known as a generous person who, along with two other prisoners with whom he attended Bible study, had routinely performed small…

“From journalism I learned to write under pressure, to work with deadlines, to have limited space and time, to conduct an interview, to find information, to research, and above all, to use language as efficiently as possible and to remember always that there is a reader out there.” – Isabel Allende “one forges one’s style on the terrible anvil of daily deadlines.” – Emile Zola “deadlines just aren’t real to me until I’m staring one in the face.” – Rick Riordan “I envy people who can think, ‘No, I’m not going to work today’ when they have a huge pile of deadlines stacking up.” – Julian Fellowes “dreams don’t have deadlines. I’m thinking of doing bigger and better things and having more fun with it.” – LL Cool J “I…

One of the most frustrating aspects in the life of a poet can be the lack of outlets to collaborate with peers or share work. Enrolling in an MFA program can help create a lifelong professional and personal network of colleagues, both those perfecting their craft and the professors leading the courses. Nurturing talents in a positive environment filled with likeminded people can also expand awareness of contemporary poets and trends in the field. Dean Young, award-winning poet and professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s New Writers Project, says that an MFA program “is a place where the imagination is encouraged and fostered … where a beginning writer can test resolve surrounded by people who share the same commitment to an art which is largely (thankfully perhaps) ignored…

As a writer, you can take your craft in many directions: writing for self-enjoyment, sharing with small audiences, writing online and, of course, big-time publication. The list goes on, and navigating through all of the resources available to help you achieve success (no matter what your definition of success is) can cause anxiety. The following are resources to help you get through each phase in your writing journey. Focus on one step at a time to achieve the best results. 1 Hone your craft: conferences, workshops, reading groups, classes, university. 2 Get the word out: social media, blogging, agents. 3 Share your work: contests, magazines, literary journals, self-publishing, traditional publishing. For more entries, please visit our market listings at writermag.com. INFORMATION in this section is provided to The Writer by…

From 1842 to 1848, the poet Walt Whitman may have written as many as 1,200 pieces as a journalist. I gave poetry up for journalism when I was in my mid-20s. The perks of nonfiction were immediate. Strangers at parties suddenly understood what I did for a living. I could pay my rent. When I wrote articles, I didn’t struggle to find readers. Recently, I went back to poetry after more than two dozen years, and the result is a book that is the culmination of an odd poetic “career” in which my new work is much different because I labored so long as journalist. My book focuses on newspapers shutting down, real estate extremism, bad tourism, the flattening of the self into products, moms without resources. These were my…

Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy K. Smith is the author of three poetry collections and is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University. Her first collection, The Body’s Question, won the Cave Canem Prize; her second, Duende, won the James Laughlin Award and Essence Magazine’s literary award and her third, Life on Mars, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Her fourth book – the memoir Ordinary Light – will be published by Knopf in April. WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU ’VE LEARNED ABOUT WRITING ? HOW HAS THIS HELPED YOU AS A WRITER ? Every discovery that I make as a writer, and the work it allows me to do, is true only for as long as it is true. Then something else becomes true. Perhaps the first true…

• a central storyline that carries the reader along a narrative arc; • precisely painted scenes, to put the reader into the story; • fleshed-out characters to make the reader care; • plot, or a series of actions that lead the reader toward an endpoint; • paradox; • suspense, to keep the story taut and thrilling; • dramatic conflict, pitting characters, cultural forces or communities against each other; • surprising metaphors or shapely sentences that pull the reader through the story; • the presence of a narrator, or voice; and • a connection between storyteller and audience.…

Good writers are creative, intelligent and imaginative. For long-form nonfiction writers such as Sam Quinones, other qualities – patience, persistence and stick-toitiveness – are equally critical. Quinones grew up wanting to be a detective and reading crime novels. As a young journalist, he worked as a crime reporter in Stockton, California, during some of the city’s highest crime years. In the time since, he has applied that detective mindset and those crime-reporting experiences to his long-form narrative nonfiction, the result of which is vivid, engaging prose that transports the reader into the world of the story. Writers of long-form know a story can’t be researched properly in one or two interviews or one trip to the story’s location. The process is much more laborious, and sometimes digging deep enough to…

SONIA I need a life. I need a friend. I need a change. But nothing ever changes. MASHA Now, now, please don’t get down in the dumps. SONIA That’s easy for you to say. You have a life, you have a career. MASHA oh, I wish you wouldn’t feel jealous of me. It just exhausts me. even if you were an actress, God forbid, we wouldn’t ever go up for the same parts. I’m a leading lady, while you are much more of a… VANYA Masha, I don’t think you should finish that sentence. SONIA Thank you, Vanya. VANYA You’re welcome, Sonia. MASHA Well, it’s not as if my career has been without disappointments, just like your life, Sonia. I’ve suffered too. I’m a movie star, but am I known…

Over the past two decades, daily news deadlines have been irrevocably altered. With the Internet’s ascent, time limitations have, paradoxically, become both more burdensome and less onerous. For a recent daily news assignment, I was given three deadlines. I was writing about an event that would end just before the newspaper’s first edition print run, to be distributed to distant locations around the state. My first submission had to be bare bones – something, anything, to fill the news hole. The newspaper’s final edition would go to print an hour later. My copy for that issue would need to be more expansive, including more quotes and, perhaps, a catchy or clever opening paragraph. Yet another hour beyond, I was expected to file for the newspaper’s online edition. Here, then, was…

READERS should use caution when entering into any legal contract with a literary service offering agenting-type assistance;publishers who charge, rather than pay, an author for publication; publishers who require a purchase before publication andcontests that charge high entrance fees. The Writer also recommends requesting a list of references and submission guidelines before submitting a manuscript. If you have any concerns regarding the advertiser’s commitment or claims, please contactthe advertiser and make certain all questions are answered to your satisfaction. ADVERTISERS We do not accept ads from agents or businesses that charge a reading or marketing fee; Subsidy Publishers: Copy of contract. In order to effectively handle questions from our readers regarding the products and services of our advertisers, the staff of The Writer asks that you provide us with some…

A sure measure of Tony Hoagland’s passion for writing resides right in the title of his new collection: Twenty Poems that Could Save America and Other Essays. Hoagland, who besides writing essays is a prize-winning poet and teacher at the University of Houston, laments the increasingly rapid disappearance of poetry in our schools and the attendant forfeiture of the love of language brought on by that vanishing curriculum. Poets and other writers, he says, “preserve the English language. As long as we make these little cages called poems or prose, there’s a place where the language is still getting to play at its full potential, and even managing to expand those perimeters and those boundaries. When you write well, you are doing what you can do. We just have to…

“Craft is a trick you make up to let you write the poem.” –Anne Sexton Sierra DeMulder @sierrademulder preached to @Tmillerpoetry about line breaks for 20 min – reminded me that I love teaching the craft just as much as I love using it. #poetry Kenia Cris @kenia_cris Third poem today. I should probably call it a day. >>> Thou shall not look down #poetry #poesia David Starzynski @sfourstarz The wind is the only rent the birds have to pay for their tree top nests. #micropoetry #amwriting #poetry Kandice Black@kandicejasmine Nothing makes a boring #Sunday better than a huge cup of #tea, #music and some #poetry. Sada @SaraTRLW A thought IS a seed. #poetry #poem #poet Peter Griffin @zigzackly I search for poetry By writing it Nonsense verse, parody, doggerel…

“For me, a poem is an opportunity to kind of interrogate myself a little bit.” –Tracy k. Smith COFFEE SPOON CHARM Measure out your life with this tiny silver-plated coffee spoon, just like J. Alfred Prufrock did. Starts at $22. notonthehighstreet.com WALL DECAL Hang the words of a master right above your desk to channel your muse and remind yourself where to begin. Starts at $30. tradingphrases.com MASTERPIECE NECKLACE Talk about a statement piece! The opening lines of “The Waste Land” can hang dramatically around your neck for an elegant evening out. Starts at $95. victoriacontreras.com ELEMENTS OF STYLE Blend the arts and science with the newest element on the periodic table: Ts is for Eliot. Get this funky design in a magnet, baby clothes and more. Starts at $4.…

Pamela Colloff combines a profile, a legal procedural and an epic saga that indicts the criminal-justice system. She manages to keep us riveted over a two-part story that runs 28,000 words, in passages such as the excerpt included here. Part of what keeps us reading is Colloff’s precision, from the “8,995th day in prison” to her protagonist’s prison nickname, “the Ice Cream Man.” Colloff doesn’t rely solely on powers of observation, because she can’t have been present in every moment she recreates for us; she also relies on relentless and astute questioning. Her details – from the sublime (“a Bible”) to the mundane (“a toothbrush”) – serve a purpose, summing up the character of the wrongly accused Texan. In many other passages, Colloff quotes from Morton’s eloquent letters and heartbreaking…

Imagine you’re an aspiring poet. You’ve just handed an established poet a sheaf of your first poems. Are they any good? Are they “real” poems? And if they are – which you secretly hope they are – how on Earth do you get them published? Such is the scene laid out by acclaimed and prolific poet May Sarton in “A Poet’s Letter to a Beginner,” published in The Writer in April 1962. “You have a strong suspicion that you are a genius, and in your heart of hearts what you hope from me is an accolade. You do not really want criticism any more than someone bringing me a bunch of flowers, and saying, ‘I grew these myself’ wants it,” Sarton says. Yet Sarton does offer advice, because she sees…