RIASS stuff:
Stop it or you'll go blind! Or, how reading is ruining my eyesight'Is your reading habit doing terrible things to your eyesight? Or do you have any tips for helping us readery types? Swing by the post and share your stories!
It's not you, it's me: a letter to Beck McDowell's'This is Not a Drill
Interview: Jennifer Laurens, author of Grace Doll, on immortality in fiction
Other bookish stuff:
Daniel Tammet: maths is as rich, inspiring and human as literature' Tammet, who has Aspergers and whos precociously gifted in maths, has written a third book about maths, and talks here about his experiences with Aspergers and about the overlap of maths and literature. GK Chesterton was an early inspiration for'Thinking in Numbers'' especially his essays. I have surprised myself by moving into fiction. Fiction has taught me about maths ' they are much more similar than people tend to believe. Both respond to fundamental questions about life. Both deal with meaning ' in maths, it is about the nature of a point, a line or a square. Ive tried to bring storytelling to mathematics.
An interview with Nancy Holder'I was taken by Holders response to why it is that her work is so popular: I try to be direct and honest (and kind, I guess, sometimes at least) and to say the things that people are thinking, but dont realize anyone else is thinking. Ive had so many people come up to me and ask, How did you know? I also try to spread the word that even in the darkest place, there is hope. I think thats such an important message.
I totally want to hold a bookworm party:
Eleven NaNo books that have been published.'Just logged on to the NaNo site, and there have thus far been'1,391,540,364 words written by participants. Hmm, guess these eleven authors might be outliers, then?
Virgins in romance: an interview with Jodi McAllister'I have this idea that you can locate virginity loss episodes in romance along a kind of spectrum: at one end, you have books where virginity loss is figured as this deeply transactional thing the hero takes the heroines virginity, and that means that she is His For All Time. At the other end, you have books where virginity loss scenes are kind of a way for both characters to say, hey, I love you.
An interview with Nanette Vonnegut'He was expelling them [the demons] with writing and with artwork. If he wasn't writing he was creating terraces on our patio. He was a nonstop creative force. It was like he had to keep busy or he would die.'The demons gave him the impetus.
Lessons from Philip Roth'If you think you work too hard, think about Roth and think again. If you're satisfied with your accomplishments, think again. Roth's won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award (twice each), the PEN/Faulkner Award (three times), and is the only writer to have his canon published by the Library of America while still alive.
On the spectre of Frankenstein'Like much of my preferred horror'as indicated by my use of a fancy Aristotelian term above'Frankenstein'is based in tragedy rather than morality plays Frankenstein [the monster] and Victor are tragic antagonists.' Both are driven by passions they cannot or will not control. Both have singular talents that could benefit humankind, but instead they trap each other in a morass of vengeance, grief and rage. They mirror each other and create and recreate each other throughout the book.
Criminal minds: when a crime writer turns to crime'A Texas crime writer has been sentenced to up to 30 years in prison for hiring a hitman to kill her husband.
and on a similar note, maybe writers shouldnt write what they know'[a writer's] experience should liberate his [or her] imagination, not restrict it. Of course I want him [or her]'to take inspiration where he [or she] can find it. What I don't want'and what's prone to happen when writers set out to write what they know'is for him [or her] to think an imagined story is less urgent, less harrowing or authentic, than a true story.
Do you consider yourself a writer or an aspiring writer?'I was thinking about this the other day. I make my living as a freelancer/copywriter, and my list of publication credits, both fiction and nonfiction, is pretty long. Since signing with an agent Im beginning to feel a bit like a writer (that Monty Python-esque, well, a bit), but I keep telling myself that Ill only be a proper writer when I have a book deal. But if that happens, then who knows? Maybe I wont be a proper writer until Ive achieved X, where X represents those ever-moving goalposts
YA and boys and the problem of limited historical context'Theres been a bunch of stuff written recently about how YA is not addressing young men, or is not addressing them in terms of traditional male roles, which the author of this article refutes. Writers today'are'writing about manhood'and it's weird and dated and sexist to say they're notBecoming a classical man often meant repressing emotions such as empathy and embracing one's place in the patriarchy. This era of robust manhood was also one where women had no liberty, where homosexuals were viewed as deviant, where good men could be owned and traded like property.'And people want to go back to that?'Really?!
Happy to say that my libraries dont have late fines anymore :D
Its hard enough (since Im working & commuting so far to work) to make time to go to the library so its great if I can be late without having to pay a fine. Although, I think the main reason is (due to the area Im living in), theyre encouraging the return of the books and the borrower.
You are more likely to go back to the library to borrow books if you know you dont an outstanding fine, arent you?