Innehållsförteckning för April 2013 från The Writer

Ever since writers have produced manuscripts, they have searched for the Holy Grail of publication. While the process has rarely been easy and almost never comes with certainty, it also has never been quite so wily. Nor quite so exciting. This issue of The Writer looks at the process of writing from many angles: novels, poetry, plays, websites, biography, even tax forms. My favorite? Dana Gioia and Richard Blanco reveal their processes as poets – our tip of the hat to April as National Poetry Month and to our belief that poetry will always have a viable place in our cultural conversation. We also take a close look at authors who are borrowing techniques from the entertainment world to launch books through cross-pollinating with music, events and affinity groups. And…

Ernesto Quiñonez The New York Times called Ernesto Quiñonez’s acclaimed debut novel Bodega Dreams a “new immigrant classic” and selected it as a notable book of the year. Several high schools and colleges around the U.S. feature it on syllabi. Bodega Dreams and Quiñonez’s follow-up novel Chango’s Fire both follow the struggles of characters in and around the housing projects of El Bario (New York City’s Spanish Harlem), where Quiñonez grew up. Quiñonez is an associate professor of Cornell University’s MFA program. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, Newsweek and elsewhere. What is the most important lesson you’ve learned about writing? THAT I MUST CONTINUE to treat it with discipline and respect, otherwise two months turn into 10 years, and I have not written anything. If…

The Writer Facebook page hosts an active exchange about writing. We recently asked followers to respond to this series: Write as if you are dead. Write as if you are alive. Write as if you are. Below are some of our favorite responses. @TheWriterMag Twitter Verse April is National Poetry Month. Search “poet,” “poem” and “poetry” on Twitter. Get inspired by the chatter. Be part of the conversation. The Babel Library @thebabellibrary Burse of the brawl/They stroll to persevere/Summer is paté #haiku #poetry #babel Richard Blanco @rblancopoet Words are timeless. You should utter them or write them with a knowledge of their timelessness.-Kahlil Gibran Street Poets Inc. @StreetPoetsInc Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. Robert Frost Bajan Goddess @thatssoopaige she lives…

Dana Gioia has published four collections of poetry, most recently Pity the Beautiful. His poetry collection Interrogations at Noon won an American Book Award, and his critical work Can Poetry Matter? was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. As chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Gioia spearheaded Poetry Out Loud, a national recitation competition involving nearly half a million high-school students. We asked him to share a poem and tell us about his craft. How do you know you have a topic for a poem? My creative process is odd to explain. I never really choose a topic for a poem. Nor do I choose a form. The poem chooses me. A phrase or line comes into my head along with a powerful rush of…

MOST WRITERS DON’T SCRATCH WITH A QUILL ON PARCHMENT OR SCRAWL IN LONGHAND ACROSS A LEGAL PAD OR BANG AWAY ON A TRUSTY SMITH-CORONA ANYMORE. Yet many authors still introduce their works to potential readers by sitting behind a folding table adorned with a stack of books, bookmarks and pens. It’s a big, ever-changing media marketplace out there, so how can a writer who sticks with the static book reading or signing hope to make a mark or draw new audiences to his or her work? Some authors are borrowing from the world of entertainment to turn book launches into events that stand out from the – let’s face it – waning traditional methods of promotion. Since the debut of her 2008 novel Deep Dish, Atlanta author Mary Kay Andrews…

Oscar Wilde thought it was vulgar. Joyce Carol Oates called it “pathography.” And New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani referred to it as “bloodsport.” Despite such scathing criticism, the genre of biography is thriving. Because the craft requires an eclectic mix of talents, biographers are part anthropologist, part geologist and part writer. They study origins, observe behaviors and note the effects of pressure and time. After years of research and writing, biographers who write about past figures watch – perhaps like Lazarus, perhaps like Dr. Frankenstein – as their dead come to life. Setting aside claims that the genre implies a voyeuristic culture in decline, critics of biography have some valid beefs: Memories of survivors fade. Witnesses have their own agendas. And if your protagonist died centuries ago, there’s no…

Two years after Five Points debuted in 1996, the Council of Literary Magazines awarded it a Best New Journal Award. More recently, the publication’s editors at Georgia State University celebrated the school’s centennial with a reading by U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey. The journal, which takes its name from a spot on which cattle paths once met in downtown Atlanta, publishes emerging writers as well as award-winners with several books to their names. Sexton speaks with palpable love for Five Points. “Each time we put together an issue,” says Five Points co-editor Megan Marie Sexton, “it’s as if we’re doing it for the first time. That helps it to remain vital and interesting.” Tone, editorial content “What really grabs me,” Sexton explains, “is a spark of imagination in a story…

INFORMATION in this section is provided to The Writer by the individual markets and events; for more information, contact those entities directly. C = Children’s F = Fiction N = Nonfiction O = Other P = Poetry $ = Offers payment WriterMag.com Subscribers to The Writer have online access to information on 3,000+ publishers, publications, conferences, contests and agents. Go to WriterMag.com and click on Market Directory. Conferences & Workshops ALABAMA ALABAMA WRITERS’ CONCLAVE CONFERENCE Fairhope, Ala., July 12-14, 2013. A workshop, conference and contest hosted by the Alabama Writers’ Conclave, one of the oldest writers’ organizations in continuous existence in the U.S. Contact: www.alabamawritersconclave.org. CALIFORNIA BOOK PASSAGE TRAVEL WRITERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS CONFERENCE Corte Madera, Calif., Aug. 8-11, 2013. This annual conference for travel writers and photographers is now in…

Letter writing is an art. There are letters that are short and sweet, that almost verge on being memoranda. There are letters that are detailed and solipsistic, navel-gazing spill-it-all tomes that somehow bore and fascinate you at the same time. And of course there are the beautiful ones: carefully lettered cursive pieces, well thought-out, inked on expensive parchment, and lovingly pasted shut with a monogrammed sticker. Sometimes those letters smell like lavender, and sometimes they even have a fancy wax seal. But they are not art. I learned the (now dying) art of letter writing from my pen pal from Minnesota, Missy. I had connected with her by filling out a form in a magazine when we were about 10-or 11-years old. When I dropped that first letter in the…

I could feel the words spilling from my head, evaporating out of my ears. When I spoke, “tambourines” mixed with “trampolines.” Phrases such as “parking meters” became “that thing you put money into,” and the names of my favorite novels disintegrated. My brain was fried. If you’re a writer with a full-time job, you know the feeling. You spend long work hours juggling numbers and orders and lists, then siphon your brain clean on nights and weekends. You fill your mind with story ideas and dialogue, only to vacuum it out again come Monday morning. Your head becomes a pile of mixed-up mush. It’s essential to keep your writing brain sharp despite the pressures of work and everyday life. Here are some quick tricks to keep your mind fit and…

John Foster is a veteran journalist and book author, an experienced editor, and a public relations professional. In his extremely practical and concise guide to writing well, Writing Skills for Public Relations, Foster shares his lifetime of knowledge working with the English language. Despite its PR-specific title, Foster’s manual will greatly help anyone who writes: newspaper journalists, magazine writers, nonfiction book authors and, yes, PR and marketing pros. Foster is very smart and, much like grammar guru Lynne Truss (author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, a book he cites favorably multiple times), he has strong opinions about what constitutes good writing, offering tips in a brisk and sometimes-lighthearted manner. Good writing, he says, “calls for clarity, brevity … it means making sure spellings are correct and that words are not…

OREN JACOBY is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has explored many subjects, including anti-Semitism, Shakespeare, basketball and the Beatles. His 2004 film Sister Rose’s Passion was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. But he began his career in the theater, directing both new works and classics. His artistry is driven not so much by design, but by temptation: He gets an idea, and he simply can’t resist. That’s why he decided to return to his roots and take a crack at adapting Ralph Ellison’s iconic 1952 novel, Invisible Man. The novel’s rich imagery and sweeping themes presented a monumental challenge. How do you take a classic novel about a man who doesn’t have a name and turn it into an engaging stage drama? Jacoby pondered the…

An author’s website is not a digital field of dreams. Just because you built it (and spent money on it) doesn’t mean visitors will come to your home on the Web. To attract visitors to your website and keep them returning, the website must have a high “sticky factor,” and you must do outreach for the site to accomplish your writing and publishing goals. A “sticky website” immediately captures a visitor’s interest and curiosity. It gets people to stick around to learn more about you, which translates into the opportunity to sell your books, secure speaking engagements, impress an agent or increase your audience. “Websites with a strong sticky factor keep visitors on site for an extended period of time after they arrive and get visitors to return to the…

• RESEARCH AND WRITE AT THE SAME TIME. This will reveal what you know (and don’t) and help focus your work. • MOUNTAINS OF MATERIAL. A good problem. Bring your patience and a big shovel. You’ll frequently be digging for buried treasure. • DISTRACTIONS. They happen. But don’t get waylaid by your subject’s stamp collection. Use distractions as reminders to get back on track. • FALLING IN LOVE. Master biographers will tell you it comes with the territory. But it’s the fresh angle on your subject, not your affection, that will grab you readers. • UNCOOPERATIVE SOURCES. Not everyone is going to appreciate your presence. When you build trust and credibility with minor sources first, it will ease your path to major players. • REPEAT INACCURACIES. When interview notes place…

Bloggers may repeatedly tell you that the way to get more readers to your own blog is to write guest posts for others. What they don’t often mention is that just as important as writing great posts is making sure you’re contributing to the right blogs. Doing the hard work of writing posts and not seeing any results can be extremely demotivating. My first few attempts at guest blogging brought very few readers to my blog or newsletter, and it was only when I analyzed why that I realized that I’d been working hard, not smart. Smarten up your guest blogging efforts, and you’ll see results immediately. Here’s how. Step 1: Define the purpose of your guest blogging. You’re guest blogging to get more readers, right? To do that, you…

In Catherine Chung’s powerful first novel Forgotten Country, she weaves folktales and long-held family secrets into a story of two sisters. When younger, rebellious Hannah disappears, older, responsible Janie must find her and convince her to join their parents in Korea before it’s too late. But past events shatter the delicate harmony of the present. With elegant prose and a natural gift for building momentum, Chung examines the tension between wanting to please your family and wanting to break out on your own, and explores how the people closest to you sometimes seem like strangers. BookPage named Forgotten Country one of the best books of 2012. Chung, who received an undergraduate degree in mathematics from the University of Chicago, says that “both writing and math are ultimately about learning how…

Every month until April, which is National Poetry Month, volunteer poets will be engaging in a poetry marathon. To raise funds for Tupelo Press, a nonprofit literary press, each participant writes 30 poems in 30 days. In December, one poet accepted the challenge, Rebecca Kaiser Gibson, and she exceeded the 30/30 goal, writing 31 poems in the 31 days of December. The next month brought a large crop of volunteers. Nine poets flexed their creative muscles in January to produce a poem a day. All the work is posted on the 30/30 project webpage (tupelopress.wordpress.com/3030-project). Poets can also volunteer for the upcoming months of the project by emailing publisher@tupelopress.org with a brief bio and three sample poems. Here are two poems from day one of the January project. In the…

THIS DISCUSSION IS still in progress-and probably will be for some time to come-so the boundaries are not clearly marked. Still, many seem to agree that possibility is a determining factor. Science fiction explores what is possible (even if it’s improbable), while fantasy explores the impossible. Of course, possibility comes with some measure of subjectivity. which complicates matters. Let’s turn to Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 45! and The Martian Chronicles, and a writer in both genres. He described science fiction this way: “Science fiction is really sociological studies of the future, things that the writer believes are going to happen by putting two and two together,... Science fiction is a logical or mathematical projection of the future.” Fahrenheit 451 describes an America where people are consumed by media, and…

“You’ve got to bring your characters to life with the very first sentence!” the well-known editor expounded from his seat on the writers’ panel, pounding his fleshy fists on the table for emphasis. From the back of the room, a writer called out, “Marley was dead: to begin with!” – the first sentence of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Giggles ensued. Nonetheless, the editor was right. Even the most minor characters, if they add nothing to the story beyond the one thing you brought them in to accomplish, are an opportunity wasted if left undeveloped. Adding depth and detail can create the aura of time and place, further the plot and save you paragraphs of potentially dull exposition. Notice that even Marley came alive (as a ghost) in Dickens’ tale. And…

“Don’t wait until April 14 to start your tax return. Keep track as you go along.” Freelancing full-time for more than 16 years, I’ve met hundreds of other self-employed scribes. I’ve found that most freelancers share some common attributes. They’re self-motivated. They’re smart. They’re inquisitive. And they’re passionate about making a living from their words. Yet even the smartest freelancer can make some foolish mistakes when it comes to paying taxes. With tax season upon us, let’s look at nine mistakes even smart freelancers can make – and avoid. MISTAKE: Failing to Prove a Profit Motive The Internal Revenue Service considers the vast majority of writers hobbyists, not business owners. This doesn’t mean that they’re not serious about craft or passionate about pursuing it. Rather, it means that they lack…

1 Punchy headlines and hyperlinks. Headlines should quickly and creatively tell visitors what they will find on a webpage. Headlines should say something more than your name, but still convey who you are and what the site or your book is all about. Richard Bard uses a rave book blurb for a headline on his homepage. Likewise, hyperlinks should tell a visitor exactly where a link will take them. “Read Julie’s articles on parenting the autistic child” is much more informative than “Read More.” 2 Un-stock your photos. Don’t use generic stock graphics. Personalize your site and make a connection with visitors by using images that show your personality and your interests and illustrate what you have to offer. 3 Reveal deep insights. Let people into your world. Use images…

IN JANUARY, Richard Blanco stepped onto the American stage in one of the most historic events in the life of the republic: Inauguration Day. He rose confidently to the microphone and stood before millions worldwide and did something rare and wonderful. He read a poem. And not just any poem. He read “One Today,” in which he describes a nation of people deeply, richly and at times painfully connected by the sun above their heads and the ground beneath their feet, and all the workplaces, playgrounds, farms, deserts and cities between. Blanco likes to say he was “made in Cuba, assembled in Spain and imported to the United States.” He will be written about in the history books as the first openly gay, Latino, immigrant and youngest (so far) inaugural…

“We have a lot of fun at ThrillerFest,” says Kimberley Howe. And not just because best-selling authors like R.L. Stine, Michael Connelly and the famously reclusive Anne Rice will be showing up. The upcoming four-day event is a bit more, well, titillating, says Howe, than your average writers’ conference. This year, organizers are expecting more than 900 attendees for the three mini-festivals taking place under the ThrillerFest umbrella – AgentFest, CraftFest and ThrillerFest – and fans, aspiring writers and established authors dive into the thriller genre. A mini writing school, CraftFest opens the conference on Wednesday and lasts through Thursday morning – and is the fastest growing part of the conference. For good reason, says Howe: It allows attendees to learn tips and tricks about the craft of writing directly…