Nov. 19, 2009
National Book Awards announced
Last night the winners of the National Book Awards were announced at a ceremony in New York. For insights into the writing process, be sure to read the interviews with the winning authors (and most of the finalists) that are posted on the NBA Web site. The winners, along with highlights from the NBA interviews, are:

Fiction: Colum McCann for Let the Great World Spin
"Our language is so deeply influenced by landscape, and vice versa. But mostly for me it has to do with rhythm and sound. As a writer you have to try to find the music of that place. If it's the west of Ireland it's a different music to what it is in New York. So I went out and listened to the different instruments that the city plays …"

Nonfiction: T.J. Stiles for The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
"Among my various roles, I see myself as an archeologist of the mind--or the mindset, perhaps. In researching this book, I found that much of what we take for granted today was understood very differently in the past. … The marvel of nonfiction is that it can simultaneously entertain, inform, and, at its best, instill wisdom about the human condition."

Poetry: Keith Waldrop for Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy
"I think of myself as actually very traditional, but that doesn't mean I don't experiment, of course. … The public has always been a puzzle to me. I never really tried that hard to figure out who likes what, and certainly never wrote with the idea that here's something people will like."

Young People's Literature: Phillip Hoose for Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
"I don't think it's possible for me to write about things that don't matter. Each of my nine books has been connected with building and preserving community in one way or another. I try to inspire activism through stories. The same elements that make fiction powerful animate non-fiction too: strong characters with deep feelings, interesting relationships among them, obstacles, suspense, conflict, desire. I think people learn mainly through stories."

Also honored at the ceremony were Gore Vidal, who received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and Dave Eggers, who accepted The Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.

We welcome your comments on this blog! Please post them in our forum. Click here to view archived blog entries.

Nov. 18, 2009
If you're a freelance writer, you're in sales
For many of us the holiday shopping season is already in full swing, and that leads me to mention an upcoming article in The Writer's February issue, which we're busy putting to bed this week and next.

A very accomplished freelance writer and book author, Caitlin Kelly, who has had more than 100 articles in The New York Times, took a part-time job as a retail sales associate for a high-end clothing store. On her way to becoming a very productive saleswoman there, she learned some valuable lessons about selling that are directly applicable to the writing game, and she shares them with you.

Look for the February issue, which is full of plenty of other good advice, in early January.

We welcome your comments on this blog! Please post them in our forum. Click here to view archived blog entries.

Nov. 17, 2009
Isn't language fun?
Here are a couple language-related items I ran across this morning. On The New York Times site, blogger Stanley Fish discusses phrases that produce "irritation, distress and, in some cases, the desire to kill. You hear or read one of these and your heart sinks." His favorite expression is "To Be Continued," as in you've invested time and emotion into a TV program, only to be told you have to wait a week or more to find out how the program ends.

He then lists plenty of other phrases that we've all heard and dreaded, including "Sold Out" ("when you've been waiting in line at a movie theater for 30 minutes"); "Register Closed" ("when you've been waiting not-so-patiently behind a fellow customer with 25 items"); and, my favorite, "This may hurt a little" (when "you know that pain and discomfort on a massive scale are just around the corner").

What are the phrases that irk you the most? Fish asked readers to chime in with their own favorites, and more than 900 people did just that. Fun reading!

• • •
In the Toronto Star, I found this interesting opening:

"If your Google search history could talk, would it recite a poem?

The people behind a controversial movement known as 'flarf' believe phrases found on the Internet and strung together into poetry provide a critical social commentary. Others think it's worthless drivel."

Flarfists (I'm not making that up!) Kate Dawson and Ori Barbut started creating poetry from their friends' Internet search histories--or at least from those friends who were willing to make their histories public. Dawson and Barbut soon had enough poems to self-publish a book, SearchBar History Vol. 1.

Other flarfists started a public listserv, Flarf Collective, so they could write poems for each other. Star reporter Nicole Baute writes, "Google sculpting emerged as a popular technique—plugging a term, like 'deer head,' for example, into Google and then making poetry from the bits of text that come up on the search page."

Deer Head Nation, by Southern Oregon University professor K. Silem Mohammad, happens to be the title of the first full-length book of flarf. Baute continues:

"In mining the Internet for poetry fodder Mohammad says he found 'a better reflection of language as it's actually used, in all these various forms, everything from hate speech to chat room conversations to bits of maybe old novels, the entire spectrum.' "

• • •

Finally, just a reminder that our latest special issue, The Writer's Guide to Getting Published, is now available at bookstores in the U.S. and Canada.

Getting Published offers 92 pages of expert advice on taking your idea or finished work to the next step: publication. Some of the best voices in writing and publishing guide you through everything from crafting magazine queries and book proposals to working with editors and finishing the right agent. They show you how to "read" a potential market and help you target an editor who's a good match for your work. In addition, we provide information on 365 agents, publications and publishers that are looking for submissions.

Look for copies of The Writer's Guide to Getting Published at Barnes & Noble and other bookstores. You can also order this issue online and receive free shipping.

We welcome your comments on this blog! Please post them in our forum. Click here to view archived blog entries.

Nov. 13, 2009
Take a free tour of WriterMag.com
This is your weekend to take a look around WriterMag.com to see what it offers! Features that are available only to registered users or subscribers are accessible to everyone—for free. We're doing some Web site maintenance over the weekend, so we thought it was a great opportunity to let everyone peek into the innards of the Web site. All features of the Web site are completely open to everyone until 8 a.m. CST on Monday, Nov. 16.

If you haven't explored WriterMag.com, here are some of the items you should check out:

• Market Listings: We've got 3,000 listings available for you to peruse, including literary journals, consumer and trade magazines, contests, book publishers and agents. Market Listings are usually available only to subscribers who register on the Web site.

• Columns by seasoned writers: We've got Kay Day's "Web Savvy" for those of you who are using the Web to enhance your writing opportunities; "Writing Q&A" with lots of great writing insight from Brandi Reissenweber; grammar-guru Bonnie Trenga's "Watch Your Language" column for those who need a grammar refresher; and an experienced children's author, Nancy Sanders, offering her "Writing for Children" column. Once Monday morning rolls around, the columns will be available only to WriterMag.com's registered users.

• Feature articles: We've also got lots of great articles by authors who offer their expertise about freelancing, marketing your work, writing fiction, nonfiction and poetry, among others topics. Usually, these articles are available only to subscribers who are registered on the Web site, but now it's your chance to poke around and kick the tires (so to speak)!

If you like what you see, you can come back after 8 a.m. on Monday morning to register on the Web site or subscribe to The Writer. Registering is easy and free—just look for the "Register" link in the upper right-hand corner of our homepage.

Please note: From noon today to 8 a.m. on Nov. 16, no one will be able to register for a new account or log in to WriterMag.com. Forum users who have logged in and have a cookie in place before this weekend will still be able to post in the forum. The site will be back to normal and open for new registrations at 8 a.m. CST Monday, Nov. 16.

We welcome your comments on this blog! Please post them in our forum. Click here to view archived blog entries.

Nov. 12, 2009
Great author interviews, plus gift bundles
The Paris Review offers a number of its famous author interviews as free downloadable PDFs on its Web site. Over the years, editors and contributors have spoken with Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Pablo Neruda, Grace Paley, James Baldwin and many other esteemed writers. Now you can catch up on what some of your favorite writers had to say about the craft and the writing life. Plus, take a peek into their writing process; along with the interviews, the site links to samples of manuscript pages, often with the writers' handwritten corrections and notes.

If you prefer to curl up with books, you can get the four-volume boxed set of The Paris Review Interviews, out just in time for the holidays. At $65, it's a perfect gift for writers.

Tin House is also offering a set of four books for writers:The World Within, another author-interview collection, featuring contemporary masters such as Sherman Alexie, Francine Prose and Mark Strand; The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays From Tin House; The Story About the Story, a collection of essays on literature from writers including Virginia Woolf, Salman Rushdie and Oscar Wilde; and The Journal of Jules Renard, which is said to be a favorite among writers. The set, called The Tin House Writer's Series, is $35.95.

We welcome your comments on this blog! Please post them in our forum. Click here to view archived blog entries.

Nov. 11, 2009
Gifting a real bookstore
With the holidays approaching, I've acquired a pretty long list of books to purchase as gifts—along with the usual temptation to just buy them all at Amazon and be done with it in a couple minutes.

Amazon, of course, makes it all devilishly easy with "1-Click" ordering, which tops my personal list of technology-spawned temptations.

All in all, it's tough to pass up Amazon this holiday season—even though that's what I'm planning to do. After all, order a bunch of books from them and you get a) free shipping b) often a substantial discount off the cover price of a title c) books that come right to your mailbox, avoiding wasted time and gasoline, and d) did I mention the devilishly easy 1-Click ordering?

But enough of this unintended commercial for Amazon. I'm going to give my order to Boswell Book Company, Daniel Goldin's newish bookstore on Downer Avenue in Milwaukee. (It is one of the stores that have replaced the Schwartz Bookshops, which went out of business earlier this year.) Why? Because, like most readers of The Writer, I want to see non-virtual bookstores stay around, and it won't happen without giving them business. For us book-lovers, an independent bookstore is a really neat part of the texture of a community, and besides, who wants to browse a computer?

I'm hoping for a smooth buying experience at Boswell's. Yes, I may have to special-order a book or two or three there, versus the ease of Amazon ordering and availability, and I may have to hunt around a little for a parking space, but I'm willing to put up with a bit of inconvenience. A bit.

Have a comment to share? Please post it in our forum. Click here to view archived blog entries.

Nov. 10, 2009
Our parent company
Many of you may not be aware that since 2000, The Writer has been owned by Kalmbach Publishing Co., a mid-sized magazine publisher in west-suburban Milwaukee. Kalmbach purchased The Writer from longtime editor and publisher Sylvia K. Burack, who was looking to retire after her 60-year career at The Writer in Boston.

I was reminded of this yesterday as I read some of the letters Sylvia received after she announced the sale and her retirement. Here are a couple examples:

"We were surprised to learn that The Writer has been sold, but we're certainly pleased for you, as Kalmbach has a very good reputation, and now you'll be able to relax from the daily work of overseeing everything. For years you've steered the magazine on a great courser, and your remaining to oversee the transition will ensure its continuing success." —Marcia Muller

"I'm sorry that you'll no longer be running The Writer, but you've chosen a great place with Kalmbach. I grew up in Milwaukee, and as I was establishing my publishing career in New York, my beloved grandmother would always tell me that I should come home, that I could, after all, go to work for Kalmbach and work in publishing in Milwaukee, where I was meant to be. ... It's been interesting to watch the company grow and change over the years. And I think they'll do a splendid job with The Writer." —Barney M. Karpfinger

Al Kalmbach founded Kalmbach Publishing Co. in 1933 and, one year later, launched The Model Railroader magazine. Today, Kalmbach publishes 16 niche magazines, including Astronomy, Trains, Bead & Button and, yes, Model Railroader (each the bestselling magazine in its category)—as well as American Snowmobiler, Birder's World and FineScale Modeler. Kalmbach's latest acquisition, Cabin Life, targets the owners of cabins, cottages, and lake homes. The company also publishes 30 book titles per year and hosts the world's largest annual jewelry-making event, the Bead & Button Show, in Milwaukee.

I mention all this in part to draw your attention to Kalmbach's magazines as possible markets for your work. Go to Kalmbach's corporate Web site for more information on the company and its magazines.

Have a comment to share? Please post it in our forum. Click here to view archived blog entries.

Nov. 6, 2009
Tickle your funny bone
I'm not someone who typically laughs out loud at the movies or television. Oh, I find lots of things funny, but my acid test for humor is if I laugh out loud. When it comes to the printed word, if you can make me laugh out loud solely by the use of those words on the page (no help from visuals, no help from sounds), I will join your fan club forever. Hence, my devotion to the annual Bulwer-Lytton "It was a dark and stormy night" contest which toasts the worst in opening sentences.

This year, David McKenzie, of Federal Way, Wash., submitted the grand-prize winner:

Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.

Very clever. But the one that made me laugh out loud was this one by Tony Alfieri of Los Angeles, Calif.:

In a flurry of flame and fur, fangs and wicker, thus ended the world's first and only hot air baboon ride.

If that one doesn't hit your funny bone, take a look at the Web site to see if you can find one that does! For your reading pleasure, the site offers several dozen runners-up and the winners of different opening-sentence genres, plus a page devoted to a "Lyttony of Grand Prize Winners" from the last 27 years. Or if you think you might just have the talent to write a "dark and stormy night" sentence of your own, take a look at the rules on the Bulwer-Lytton Web site. They accept entries year round.

Have a comment to share? Please post it in our forum. Click here to view archived blog entries.

Nov. 4, 2009
Horror writer Peter Straub on how to scare your readers
Just in time for Halloween, the accomplished horror writer Peter Straub gave a nutshell summary of what he knows about scaring readers in an interview by Salon.com's fine books writer, Laura Miller. He told her:

I'm not sure I can explain exactly how it works. It has to do with creating believable people for whom the reader can feel affection, then putting them in danger of the unnameable and unseen. And it has to be suspended. You can't just pull a gun out and have them get shot. You have to allow the sense of underlying unease to intensify over time.                As crucial as fear is dread. Dread is essential.

You can get more advice and observations from Peter Straub by reading the full interview.

Nov. 3, 2009
Our favorite pastime
Last week the The Writer Editorial staff had a photo session with Bill Zuback of our in-house (Kalmbach Publishing Co.) photo department. Here is one outtake, a group shot of us with current or favorite reads; this is about as goofy as we get, I'm afraid! From the left: editorial associate Martha Lundin with Lincoln by David Herbert Donald; senior editor Ron Kovach with A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean; me (editor Jeff Reich) with Charles Dickens by Michael Slater; and associate editor Sarah Lange with A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore.

We welcome your comments on this blog! Please post them in our forum. Click here to view archived blog entries.