can be found over at the wondrously useful group blog I’ve joined, Recession Fabulous.
See ya there,
SV
Discovering Mira’s List
Thanks to Erika Dreifus’ wonderful blog, The Practicing Writer (see my blogroll–Dreifus’ blog is one of the best resources for writers out there) I’ve recently discovered Mira’s List, another fantastic resource for writers and artists of all kinds. Another must read folks, and while you’re there, you might even want to donate a little support. Dreifus and Mira’s List are providing absolutely essential services for us all and these kinds of services are very time consuming, as in time away from writing, consuming.
I’ve been reading the Program Era, the history of creative writing programs, the past week. What a book. I’ll post a review when I finish it.
In other news, Slate.com, has recently posted the results of a taste test that confirms what I knew all along. Dunkin Donuts makes the best coffee out there. Whenever I tell the uninitiated that I must make daily DD stops whenever I’m near one (closest to me is Jackson TN, which is fortunately on the way to Nashville and points east) they usually mumble something like, “yeah, I like donuts too.”
Folks, how many times do I have to say it. It’s not about the donuts. I don’t even particularly like donuts and besides there’s nothing special, imho, about Dunkin Donuts donuts. It’s about that delicious, delicious brew. Read about the taste test here.
Bye y’all,
SV
Straight from the UK
It was just a few weeks ago that I saw a message from Anthony Haynes on the British Creative Writing Listserv that his new academic publishing company was considering focusing on Creative Writing Studies and asking for feedback. Of course, I wasted no time in contacting him in telling him what an excellent idea that was. We got to speak together about it a week later and he told me he would keep me posted. Yesterday, I got this wonderful news:
We are pleased to announce that we are founding a publishing programme dedicated to Creative Writing Studies.
Q: Why?
A: Creative Writing has come of age as a discipline – and continues to grow – yet academic publishing has not kept pace with this development. There is some good publishing in the discipline, but overall the coverage is patchy. Too often Creative Writing Studies is treated as an add-on to subjects such as English or Literary Studies. The discipline needs its own dedicated, comprehensive, list.
Q: What?
The list will comprise scholarly works and also student guides. All our books will be rigorously peer-reviewed.
Q: Who, whom?
Who: Authors for the list will be Creative Writing Studies scholars and lecturers in higher education.
Whom: The list will be aimed at the various stakeholders – researchers, lecturers, tutors, and students – in Creative Writing in higher education. Our aim is to be the publisher for the Creative Writing Studies community.
Q: Whence?
The Professional and Higher Partnership has extensive experience of academic publishing. We provide editorial or publishing services to publishers such as Sage, Learning Matters, and the Society for Research into Higher Education. The directors are Karen and Anthony Haynes: Karen is an experienced academic editor; her publications include What Do Researchers Do? (Vitae). Anthony is Visiting Professor at Beijing Normal University and Hiroshima University; his books include Writing Successful Textbooks (A&C Black) and Writing Successful Academic Books (CUP, forthcoming – 2010).
Q: When?
The first titles will be commissioned in 2009–10 for publication in 2010–11 onwards.
Q: Where?
Books will be published (or co-published) in all major Anglophone territories.
If you are involved with Creative Writing Studies in higher education, do please contact us with any suggestions, comments, or questions you may have.
Anthony Haynes
Creative Director,
The Professional and Higher Partnership Ltd
[email protected]
Tel. UK (0)1638 663456
Talk about music to this wordamour’s ears! More on this as it develops.
Bye y’all,
SV
Summer Reading. . .So Far
I love summer because no matter how crazy busy it gets (and this summer definitely qualifies as one of the crazy busiest) the seasonal imperative remains that I must read more than usual because that is simply what you do when the mercury starts to climb (103 anyone? but I digress. . .) This is leftover from blissful childhood summers in which reading was literally all I did. I’m sure many of you can relate. Check out this earlier post to bring back the memories.
Anyway, the two weeks abroad definitely helped, but here is what I’ve managed to put away wordwise, so far (since about mid-May):
On Rue Tatin: Living and Cooking in a French Town Susan Loomis Hermann
The author’s life can seem unbelievably “idyllic” at times–but other than that, it was foodie/francophile heaven all the way–and there’s no doubt, this bold food writer has earned her bliss.
An entertaining Gen Y graphic memoir of the author’s five weeks in Paris with her mother, as the two celebrated milestone birthdays. Definitely a writer on the rise.
A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future
by Daniel Pink
Anyone under 30 and anyone who teaches or touches the next generation (parents, mentors) simply must read this book. Aka: pretty much everyone.
My Mentor: A Young Man’s Friendship with William Maxwell
by Alec Wilkinson
Maxwell is incandescent in this book and that is what makes it such a treasure–because he was.
A mystery of sorts for book club. Well done–even though I am not a mystery fan.
The Phantom Tollbooth
by Norton Juster
I read this aloud to my 8.75 year old and neither of us liked it , but since it’s a “classic,” we felt compelled to see it through. Grr. It was just a series of didactic puns. FYI: there are two kinds of people in this world, those who enjoy puns and those who do not. I fall into the latter category. ‘Nuf said.
Knucklehead by Jon Scieszka
Jon Sciezka’s autobiography about the perils and pleasures of growing up in a family of 5 (I think) boys. Fun for kids of all ages, reassuring for this sometimes mystified mother of two XY’s.
I also read two manuscripts, my friend, Monda’s novel and my friend, Mike’s memoir. Strong, strong stuff.
On Deck:
Tarte Tatin
More bliss on Rue Tatin and mouthwatering recipes.
The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing by Mark McGurl
Louis Menand’s recent, widely debated article on creative writing programs in the New Yorker was a review of this book.
And still, the nightstand groans with stacks. Wish me luck!
Bye y’all,
SV
The Kiss Under the Bridge
So, we’re spending our last day in France in Paris, before we fly out the following morning. We’ve completely exhausted ourselves walking everywhere, because everything seems so, well, walkable in Paris that you don’t realize you’ve walked 20 miles in one day. The kids are complaining, we’re thinking about finishing with a boat ride along the Seine–even though we’ve done this several times before, I never get tired of it. And it seems like a good way to get some rest before the long walk from the right bank to the B and B in the latin quarter.
Uh oh. They don’t take credit or debit cards and we’re running low on cash. We need 40 euro for the cab ride to the airport in the morning. Oh, what the hell, how many times do you get to boat along the Seine as dusk turns into night. We’re counting on finding a money machine on the way back to the B and B.
The upper deck is crowded and our family of four gets split up, John and Jackson behind us, me and Will up ahead of them. In the row in front of us sit a charming American couple who I judge to be on their honeymoon, such is their dewiness and glow.
As we round Notre Dame towards the end of our trip, the tour guide says something he’s probably said for the tenth time that day or week, that if you kiss your partner and make a wish as we go under the approaching bridge, your wish will come true.
Of course, the couple in front of us kissed. Of course, they were charming about it. Of course, I felt compelled to snap their picture.
After the moment had passed, I showed them the picture on my camera and offered to email it to them if they’d give me an address. They eagerly agreed, we chatted, the young man (he’s a little younger than me, late 30’s perhaps?) jotting his email in my purse-sized black moleskine labeled “Brilliant Ideas,” on the front.
Of course, it took me awhile to email them the photo, but I finally did last week. What I received in return was a gift in itself.
Thank you for the pictures. It was a very special moment for us. You
captured it for me. What I am going to tell you below is absolutely
true….
My wish..under the bridge…was for me to go ahead and ask Julie to
marry me while we were in Paris / Europe. I really didn’t plan this,
but when the wishing bridge thing came up, this is what I wished for.
That night, I told Julie of the wish at dinner…and on the last night
of our trip, in Paris…I asked her to marry me. She said yes, and now
we are engaged. The kissing pic is the kiss that sealed this wish.
Actually not sure if I would have done it, had the wish bridge thing not
come up.
Thanks for taking it and caring enough to send it to me.
I hope that you had a nice trip in Paris.
Thank you!
Brilliant ideas, indeed.
Bye y’all,
SV
A few pictures from France
We interrupt our regular blogging about writing and books etc. etc. to post a few especially delicious pictures from France. Enjoy!
Two fans at the front of Shakespeare and Company:
A Typewriter at Shakespeare and Co. (for Monda)
Flower Market on the Seine
E Dehillerin, Mecca For Foodies, and French Rolling Pins on the Shelf
Wordamour Returns, Again, and a New Book to Read!
Well, it’s been a heck of a month. First, Wordamour’s husband went to France for 3 weeks to research and work on his novel, leaving her to experience single parenthood for the first time while also juggling a new freelance writing assignment for PBS as well as her usual work responsibilities. Fun, fun. If his purpose was to show just how much he co-parents when he is home, mission accomplished! He was sorely missed in many ways and Wordamour had barely a minute to breathe the whole time.
Then, Wordamour packed up the kids and trekked over to Arles, France for two weeks to join him. No way she was going to let him go to France without joining him at some point; Wordamour loves France just too much for that. Expect some great pictures and travel blogs in subsequent posts–right now I want to introduce a wonderful new book that has come out and exhort you to order it.
Mothers in All But Name is a beautiful anthology edited by Marguerite Bouvard about all the different forms mothering can take. Yes, I have an essay in here, about my other life as a nanny many years ago, but really, the other essays are just lovely, those are the ones I want to point you too. Here’s a review:
“This mesmerizing book is filled with surprising stories about the love between women and children. It reveals how biological mothers are at times replaced / supplemented by other women who bond with their children. Most of all, it is a book about love. Marguerite Bouvard has opened the door to a set of life experiences that were invisible until now. Everyone can benefit from walking through that door with her.”
—Shulamit Reinharz, Ph.D., Jacob Potofsky Professor of Sociology, Brandeis University
Read more about Mothers in All But Name here (don’t you love the 70’s cover picture?) and order it here.
It’s good to be back. By y’all, just for now, I promise,
SV
Blog to Watch and WIOTD Returns!
Announcing the debut of Zombiesandcream, the new blog of my friend, colleague and local zombie guru, Robin Becker. No, not the poet Robin Becker, the novelist and nonfiction writer, Robin Becker, whose literary zombie novel is about to take the publishing world by storm. You’ll find it on my blogroll. Check it out. You’ll be glad you did.
Wardrobe issues have been relatively subdued recently, until this morning’s conversation:
Will: I can’t wear that shirt. It’s a Yugioh shirt. I only wear Yugioh shirts on Saturdays.
Dad: But you don’t go to Yugioh tournaments on Saturdays any more. So you can wear the shirt during the week.
Will: Nope. (shakes head) Doesn’t matter. I only wear Yugioh shirts on Saturdays.
Dad, choosing his battles: Fine. Go pick out your own shirt.
Ah, the very arbitrary nature of our obsessions.
Could this be the offspring of a woman who has a “Sunday-only” coffee mug and always reads the Sunday ads starting with Walgreens and ending with Target? You decide—
May 1, the MS is in the Mail!
So I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks because of number of looming deadlines, the loomingist of which was May 1, the date to get the revised manuscript Teaching Creative Writing: A Practical Guide and Sourcebook to our editor at Fountainhead. Because we were transforming it from a basic textbook to a professional guide, we had a lot of revising to do, all of which has made it a substantially meatier book, I’m happy to say. I’m also happy to report that since Wendy Bishop’s Released Into Language: Some Options for Teaching Creative Writing went out of print ten years ago, this book is going to be the only one of its kind.
Kelly Ritter, my longtime collaborator and I, wrote it with an eye toward what would have helped us out when we just started teaching but it’s so much more than that, thanks to the editor’s suggestions, which were a ton of work but have made it a much better book.
So yesterday was the deadline, preceded, of course, by the closest thing to an all nighter I have experienced since college. But when I told the editor I was going to email it to her she asked me to send it on a jump drive instead. I could have translated that to mean, “take a little longer, I don’t need it this second.” But I wanted, I needed that book in the mail so that I could turn my attentions to all the other work and family demanding them or at least luxuriate in having one less thing to worry about. So I scrounged myself a jump drive and a padded envelope and that baby went out late yesterday afternoon! This time next week, probably earlier, it will be in her hands–and one step closer to publication.
If you can’t tell, this post is basically one big sigh of relief. Aaaah.
Bye y’all,
SV
Today’s Fiction. . .
Heather Sellers posted a dinner party what to read list on her blog, Word After Word, recently. Can’t help but notice that so much of the list is nonfiction–which I find myself drawn to more and more these days because. . .dare I say, I find it’s better written, manages to combine interesting subject matter with elegant prose more than much of the fiction that seems to find its way to bookstore shelves today.
I read an agent quote from a Poet’s and Writers interview suggesting that there was a lot of “beautifully written” fiction out there but it didn’t “grab” the agent.
Surely, there must be submissions that do both. . .I’m reading The Lace Reader for a book club right now and while the plot is decent enough, I can barely get through the writing, first person present tense, pretentious and self conscious. Is it possible that these editors/agents are revealing a bias against good writing in fiction, believing, when they see it, that they just have a “beautiful little nonstory” on their hands.
Interestingly, one of the other people interviewed described watching teenage girls in a bookstore talking about great books that they’d read and then observed, that, come to think of it, “there are a lot of good books in the YA market these days.” Well written books, too, I’d like to add. I’m rarely disappointed in the writing in a YA book, and the burden of a strong plot is on those books just as much, perhaps more, as their adult counterparts.
Food for thought. What do you think?
