Category: writingPage 1 of 3
The opening of Timothy Brooks’s The Confusions of Pleasure is a great one — even if it might not be true.
People who skip the sports section miss some extraordinary writing. Advancing to the Western Conference finals, a championship team will step up its game. And the San Francisco…
Thanks to Daniel Pritchard and the Critical Flame for publishing my short opinion piece on Shakespeare and globalism. I wrote the piece in conjunction with my participation in…
A nice short review of River of Ink in my local paper: “River of Ink: Literature, History, Art” by Thomas Christensen (Counterpoint Press, $35, 320 pages). The title…
I quite often get e-mails from young writers interested in book publishing, and I almost always find them always encouraging. A young writer wrote today to say: I read your article, “How to…
“Hello World” used to be the first post of blog beginnings. Hard to believe it’s been nearly a year since I made a post. At one time I was…
This is what I’m thinking of for the cover of my new book, a selection of my essays. We’ll see if my publisher likes it. I’m happy again…
With a couple of forthcoming books and other projects in the works, I’m sometimes asked how I manage to do this considering I have a day job, and…
How does a hurricane move? It “barrels” and “churns,” to judge from the most popular verbs. “Lumbers” is the oddest verb choice, yet it is used rather often,…
When you attempt something ambitious you’re bound to make some mistakes along the way. I’m sure the book I’m working on will have its fair share (recently I…
I have a month to polish up the book I’m currently working on, and I’m experimenting with a randomized editing process. Most writers spend a lot of time…
Jill Schoolman of Archipelago Books asked recently if I would be interested in translating the major twentieth-century Spanish poet Jose Angel Valente. As it happens I would, and…
I write like William Shakespeare I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing! … William Shakespeare. Anyway, that’s what it says here. I was scrolling through…
Today I initiate what I am hoping will become a more or less weekly feature here at blog.rightreading.com — a report on book news from newspapers and journals…
When the ancients wrote books they were trying to get at reality and transmit spirit. But all they could convey was a general idea, in order to help…
I received the following e-mail: Within the last few months, I sent you a query regarding my book, [title redacted], which you kindly declined to represent. In the…
According to a study by diabolical psychologist Joe Forgas of the University of New South Wales, unhappy people make the best writers. He did a series of experiments…
A friend and colleague, Will Powers, died suddenly of a heart attack on August 25. I had worked with Will when I was at North Point Press, employing…
Right Reading passes along the following e-mail unedited (except for removing the publicist’s e-mail address). This is a typical form for a book press release. The brief personalized…
“The submission process is like going to the DMV. It’s one of the great equalizers, and it tends to treat everybody like shit.” — Jess Mowry Author Jess…
Many years ago, as a graduate student in comparative literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a focus in part on the linguistic model in literary criticism, I…
moonlight illuninates pillow shoulder sheet monkey mind racing
Many great books begin on a quiet note — think of Tolstoy’s “All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” or…
How long should a query be? Surely it depends on the nature of the work, competing editions and the book’s market segment, your publishing history, whether you know…