A radical step
OK, it’s not as radical as all that: I’ve decided to list Mortal Ghost at the Amazon Kindle marketplace. Lest you think I’m backpedalling from my free e-format stance, I...
Social networking
In case anyone is curious, I’ve deleted my MySpace and Facebook accounts. The whole business of friending and posting and whatnot proved to be a tremendous waste of time. Anyone...
Readability
Via if:book, a nifty tool to improve onscreen text Readability. Try it!
Fifty-Two Stories
Better late than never: I seemed to have missed this offering by HarperPerennial, a free short story per week for a full year. Some good stuff there.
Wannabe
Having more or less finished Corvus, and beset by the wretchedness, even desolation, of saying goodbye to people i.e. characters who have come to seem like intimate acquaintances, I embarked...
Writing lessons with Flaubert
Flaubert to Guy De Maupassant, and just as useful today: One of the first lessons was devoted to the question of originality. “If you have any originality,” Flaubert told him,...
Measuring success
I had a long exchange last night with a writer who defines literature in terms of communication. If no one reads your work, then it’s failed; it hasn’t bridged that...
The fifth season
or Carnival in Germany. Yes, it’s that time of year again.
Being read rather than reading
It’s no secret that I have very little patience with those litbloggers who bash out something like a review a day. This is reading? Sure, go ahead and race through...
Twenty-five random opinions about the short story
This post is a good place to introduce you to Reading the Short Story, a blog I’ve recently discovered. Charles E. May, a retired professor of literature, writes posts which...
Literary certainty
Doubt is like a divining rod; it begins to tug when it nears something fertile and fluid and underground. Engaging with literary blogs, I’m often struck by the assuredness with...
Tools of change
Edward Champion of Reluctant Habits has been blogging the Tools of Change for Publishing Conference in New York. Lots to read, listen to (video clips), and consider, especially if you’re...