Perfect Whole
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Essays
- Be A Happy Warrior
- The Perils of Prophecy
- Vindication
- “The Question Is”
- Survivalism
- “The Schools”
- “How Kind of You to Come”
- Creating a Character Template
- Rejecting the Gratitude Challenge
- “Mom, What’s the Right Age to Start Having Sex?”
- Don’t Pray for Peace
- Alligators and Flash Fiction
- What Are We Preparing Our Students For?
- “Unconvincing”
- The People’s MFA
- “The Goldfinch”
- Hungry
- Querying is Like Hell, Except Your Friends Aren’t There, Part I
- A Terminal Curable Disease
- Bigger
- Expanding the Universe
- Today’s Reason to Love the Humans
- “A Hologram for the King”
- What Would Dashiell Hammett Do?
- “Popping the Hood”
- Max Perkins: Editor of Genius
- The End.
- “Following”
- A New Year Every Day
- We Don’t Need Books to Free. We Need Them to be Brilliant.
- An Angel Packs a Suitcase
- The Other Julie Goldberg
- Lobbing Nerf Rocks
- Improvised Emergency Oil Candles
- “The Circus of Dreams”
- Perfect Whole, Superstorm Sandy Edition
- “One Lovely Blog”
- Unfriended
- The Anti-Debate
- An Imperfect Conduit
A few things I was thinking about…
Obsessions
Obsessions of Others
Recurring dreams
5_Part_Series advice anti-bullying law A Room of One's Own attachment parenting authors baking blessing blogging books Bothmind brain bullying buttercream children cocoon therapy commercials concussion conflict resolution consciousness consumerism diane ravitch digital immigrants digital natives DNTO economy editing education education reform employment entrepreneurship feminism flash fiction freaks freedom freewriting geeks internet letterboxing libraries love magnificent nose Marc Prensky materialism midlife crisis motherhood news NJ Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Obama PACC perfectionism poetry politics popularity post-traumatic stress disorder power publishing reading relationships religion romance soul suicide survival teaching technology television The People's MFA turret unknown unknowns Virginia Woolf Waldorf education weeding wisdom writingTwitter Updates
- RT @DanielleVEsq: This thread makes some important points about universal health care. All those on the left calling for single-payer shoul… 33 minutes ago
What I’m reading
Category Archives: Books & Libraries
Alligators and Flash Fiction
Flash fiction is a strange beast, isn’t it? It’s compressed like a poem or a joke. It tries to do many things in a tight space: create a tiny narrative arc, suggest fully-formed characters in a gesture or two, allude … Continue reading
Posted in Books & Libraries, Criticism, Writing
Tagged flash fiction, magnificent nose, The People's MFA, writing
2 Comments
“The Goldfinch”
Now that Donna Tartt has won the Pulitzer for The Goldfinch, I should probably link to my review of her beautiful novel on Neil Fein’s Magnificent Nose. A time-honored axiom among screenwriters and novelists is “Chase your character up a tree and … Continue reading
Querying is Like Hell, Except Your Friends Aren’t There, Part I
In February of 2013, I rejoiced to type “The End” on the manuscript I’d been writing on and off for over twenty years. I spent the next two months editing, proofreading, and preparing the manuscript for the querying ordeal. Querying, … Continue reading
“A Hologram for the King”
Despite all the hoopla about outdoor activities centered around water, serious book slaves know that the purpose of a summer vacation is reading. This week, the Magnificent Nose ran a series of summer book reviews that asked writers to think … Continue reading
Posted in Books & Libraries, Criticism
Tagged books, economy, magnificent nose, vacation
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“Popping the Hood”
Over on Neil Fein’s Magnificent Nose, I have a post up about reading like a writer, including the tragic tale of how I lost my magical reading powers and what I got in exchange. Read the essay here. Thanks! … Continue reading
Posted in Books & Libraries, Writing
Tagged books, MFA, reading, The People's MFA, writing
4 Comments
Max Perkins: Editor of Genius
Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, by A. Scott Berg, arrived in my mailbox from a friend I know only from the Internet, because life is strange these days, with the intersections of the real and the virtual constantly confusing those of … Continue reading
Posted in Books & Libraries, Criticism, Writing
Tagged A. Scott Berg, authors, biography, book reviews, books, editing, Fitzgerald, Maxwell Perkins, novelists, novels, Thomas Wolfe, writing
1 Comment
We Don’t Need Books to Free. We Need Them to be Brilliant.
When I’m meeting people for the first time, some of them want to confess: “Bless me, Librarian, for I have sinned. It has been four years since I last read a book.” People tell me this sheepishly (and quite unbidden. … Continue reading
Posted in Books & Libraries, Criticism, Writing
Tagged authors, books, consumerism, ebooks, entrepreneurship, free, internet, Kindle, publishing, readers, reading, technology, writers, writing
11 Comments
Lobbing Nerf Rocks
At a workshop I attended recently, Emmy Laybourne, author of the Monument 14 series, shared a rule, well-known among screenwriters, that I had never heard before: “Chase your character up a tree and throw rocks at him.” It’s smart advice: … Continue reading
Posted in Books & Libraries, Motherhood, Volta, Writing
Tagged advice, books, Bothmind, motherhood, wisdom, writing
3 Comments
“The Circus of Dreams”
If you love magic, slipstream, history and romance, you’ll probably love Erin Morgenstern’s debut novel, The Night Circus. Here’s an excerpt of my review of it on the Magnificent Nose. Click over to Neil’s place if you’d like to read … Continue reading
Posted in Books & Libraries, Criticism
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Perfect Whole, Superstorm Sandy Edition
We are grateful to have come through the storm safe and well, with no property damage, though I did not at all like the threatening looks one old, majestic oak was casting in the direction of my dining room. It … Continue reading
Posted in Books & Libraries, Motherhood, Writing
Tagged electricity, Hurricane Sandy, motherhood, Superstorm Sandy, wisdom, writing
8 Comments
