We chose Vikram Seth’s A SUITABLE BOY for reading while we were on vacation and were astounded to discover that the paperback is 1,474 pages long (591,552 words). One elderly relative had to rip it into sections so she could hold it while she read it. Wikipedia does not equivocate about this book but calls […]
Our daughter is taking a post-graduate writing class in creative non-fiction. We would so much rather she be studying engineering or plumbing or animal-husbandry – something with the letters j.o.b. appended. When we – hovering anxiously – ask her why she is studying writing, she says she may need it sometime in her to-be-determined career […]
Every time an author starts a new chapter or even a scene in a work of fiction, she or he is almost starting from scratch. Every scene has to be established. Where and when is it taking place? What is the time of day and what relation does this scene have to the one that […]
We have an elderly relative who says that older books – the classics – were written to be read aloud. He regularly reads aloud to his spouse; in doing so, maybe he has discerned something. His observation begs the question, do you think about how your writing sounds when read out loud? Do you read […]
When we think about books that have really thrilled us in the last two decades, we think of non-fiction. We vividly remember listening to THE PERFECT STORM (pub.1997) as we drove the Merritt Parkway so enrapt we were only intermittently aware of the road or the traffic. We would have been safer texting. What is […]
A famous writer told us recently that he plays a certain piece of music by Igor Stravinsky every time he sits down to work. We guess the music signals to his brain that it is time to go to the writing place. The remark got us wondering about the conditions in which writers write. Below, […]
Try to conceive of Charles Dickens writing not about Victorian England but about suburban New Jersey in the fifties ala Philip Roth. Then picture Alexander Portnoy in Dickensian London. Take William Faulkner’s LIGHT IN AUGUST out of Mississippi and put it, say, in Kansas. Imagine Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade on the mean streets of Mayberry. […]
If you want to sell a non-fiction book, you have to hand publishers a thirty to fifty-page document which, if done right, provides an overview of the book, summaries of every chapter, a sample chapter, author bio and a section that explains exactly what the market for the book is. The book proposal is painstaking […]
In the May 12th issue of the “New York Review of Books,” memoir reviewer and memoirist Ian Frazier predicts an onslaught of personal stories: “Seventy-six million baby boomers are reaching retirement age. Many of us own computers, and we find ourselves fascinating.” Oh, goody. In the same issue of the NYR, short story writer Lorrie […]
In the movie, “The Social Network” when Eduardo flies to California to see Mark, he arrives soaking wet from standing outside in the rain, his hair in disarray with his bangs down on his forehead. He and Mark then go speak privately, and in a camera cut, Eduardo’s hair is suddenly styled, the bangs being […]