Writing

Taking the Stage for Improvisational Comedy

Danny Groner | Posted 01.06.2009 | Entertainment

Read More: Jokes, Kathy Griffin, Comics, Humor, Stand-Up, Writing, Improv, Comedy Writing, Joke, Comic, New Years 2008, Times Square, Comedians, Stand-Up Comedy, Sense of Humor, Snl, Comedy, Improvisation, Entertainment News
Danny Groner

I enrolled in a free introduction to improv course at a local theater this week to spend time working with talented performers.

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What If the Book Business Collapses?

Hugh McGuire | Posted 12.27.2008 | Media

Read More: Literature, Publishing, Writing, Books, Bookselling, Borders, Barnesandnoble, Reading, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Media News
Hugh McGuire

The book business has stopped caring much about books. Like all businesses with stock, the people running them have one central responsibility: to increase shareholder value.

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Afflatus: It's Elusive to Me

Margot Rogers | Posted 12.17.2008 | Living

Read More: Creativity, Inspiration, College Essays, Writing, Teenagers, Living News
Margot Rogers

Sure, we'd all love to have a book published. But few of us really want to expend the energy. And even fewer are lucky enough to have afflatus!

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Waiting for Blago: A Tale of Corruption Nostalgia

Eric Dezenhall | Posted 12.14.2008 | Politics

Read More: Politics, New Jersey, Rod Blagojevich Corruption, Crime, Gangsters, Growing Up, Kids, Writing, Novels, Fbi, New Jersey Politics, Money Talks, Politics News
Eric Dezenhall

If Barack Obama has pulled a generation into public service through inspiration, I believe Rod Blagojevich will push people into public service through revulsion.

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Hybrid Readers

Hugh McGuire | Posted 12.12.2008 | Media

Read More: Literature, Kindle, Ereader, Writing, Books, Stanza, Digital, Reading, Paper, Ebooks, Iphone Ebooks, Media News
Hugh McGuire

One thing did become clear when I spoke to other people about ebooks though. They are seen as a supplement to the printed word, not a replacement for it.

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Crossing the Boundary

Tabby Biddle | Posted 12.05.2008 | Living

Read More: Voice, Women, Judgement, Blogging, Writing, Freedom of Expression, Handling Criticism, Criticism, Happiness, Living News
Tabby Biddle

What held me back over and over from getting serious about this and taking my writing to the next level was the fear of writing from a personal place and others judging me.

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Why Academics Should Blog (Redux)

Hugh McGuire | Posted 11.25.2008 | Media

Read More: Knowledge, Publicsphere, Academic, Writing, Academia, Blogging, Discourse, Ideas, Media News
Hugh McGuire

Academia should be a vanguard of our understanding of the world. It's a place where people have the time and space to think about the shape of the world, the source of some of the ideas that transform us.

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40,000 E-Books a Day

Hugh McGuire | Posted 11.21.2008 | Media

Read More: Iphone, Lexcycle, Literature, Ipod, Apple, Kindle, Ereader, Writing, Stanza, Digital, Ebook, Book, Reading, Ebooks, Media News
Hugh McGuire

That's how many e-books are getting downloaded through Stanza, the simple e-book platform for the iPhone/iPod.

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Joe the Plumber vs. Joe Heller, the Writer

Erica Heller | Posted 11.18.2008 | Media

Read More: Joe the Plumber, Publishing, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, James Jones, Books, Sarah Palin, Authors, Writing, Media News, Media News
Erica Heller

Madness and stupidity are, alas, not limited to the arena of war. The publishing world seems to also have stepped in it, and will now leave us its grimy footprints to follow on the real Bridge to Nowhere.

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Why Academics Should Blog

Hugh McGuire | Posted 10.28.2008 | Media

Read More: University, Blogs, Academic, College, Writing, Web, Journals, Openaccess, Blogging, Media News
Hugh McGuire

I've been reading a fair bit of academic writing. I've come to the conclusion that all academics should blog.

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On Books and Ebooks

Hugh McGuire | Posted 10.28.2008 | Media

Read More: Iphone, Literature, Publishing, Kindle, Writing, Ereader, Books, Digital, Reading, Ebooks, Sony, Media News
Hugh McGuire

Reading an ebooks is just "another way" to be reading, it's not necessarily a replacement of a hard copy. I prefer to talk to people face-to-face, but I recognize the utility of the telephone.

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Director David Cronenberg Is Writing A Novel

AP | Posted 10.23.2008 | Entertainment

Read More: Novels, Film, David Cronenberg, Writing, Entertainment News

ROME — Canadian director David Cronenberg is swapping his camera for a pen. The moviemaker, who was attending the Rome Film Festival on Thursda...

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First Time Novelist Breaks All Rules with a Winner

Cynthia Kling | Posted 10.08.2008 | Media

Read More: How Far Is the Ocean From Here, Virginia Woolf, Writer Interview, Workshop, Book Deal, Amy Shearn, Writing, Fiction, How to Write, Authors, Writing Class, Surrogate Mother, James Joyce, Random House, Writer Interviews, Literary Agent, Susannah Prue, Yuppies, Proust, Book, Contemporary Fiction, PJ Mark, Surrogate, Media News
Cynthia Kling

"How Far is the Ocean from Here," by Amy Shearn has to be the weirdest, funniest saddest road novel I've ever read. A single 20-something agrees to surrogate for a pair of cozy yuppies.

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Publishing Is Dead. Long Live Publishing

Hugh McGuire | Posted 09.29.2008 | Media

Read More: Literature, Publishing, Writing, Books, Fiction, Web, Novels, Non-Fiction, Ebooks, Novel, Online CD Sales, Illegal Downloading, Media News
Hugh McGuire

There's going to be a shake-up, no doubt. It'll be ugly for publishing companies that don't adjust.

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Food Blogging: The Newest Eating Disorder?

Leslie Goldman | Posted 09.19.2008 | Living

Read More: Snapping, Photographs, Oatmeal, Cupcakes, Obessive, Writing, Eating, Weight Loss, Pictures, Food Blogging, Eating Disorder, Health, Living News
Leslie Goldman

Is food blogging the answer to our nation's obesity problem...or a pathway to obsessive behavior?

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Harlan Ellison's Mad As Hell

Carol Hoenig | Posted 09.10.2008 | Entertainment

Read More: Politics, Harlan Ellison, Palin, Writing, Entertainment News
Carol Hoenig

While most everyone is talking politics or about the diversions that pose as politics, a friend sent me this link where author Harlan Ellison rightful...

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Writing As Meditation

Susan Smalley | Posted 09.04.2008 | Living

Read More: Meditation, Journals, Marcu Aurelius, Franz Kafka, Writing, Living News
Susan Smalley

Franz Kafka revealed the weirdness of thought, the profoundness of thought, and the commonality of thought in his writings. The writings he left upon...

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Roald Dahl: Spy, Playboy

The Daily Telegraph | Chris Irvine | Posted 08.31.2008 | Media

Read More: Roald Dahl, Espionage, Writing, Sex, Media News

A portrait of Dahl's Second World War years as an undercover agent attached to the British Embassy in Washington is painted in The Irregulars, publish...

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What Do Future Voters Think about the Presidential Candidates?

Esther Wojcicki | Posted 08.25.2008 | Living

Read More: Democratic Convention, Elections, National Writing Project, Education, School Opening, Writing, Barack Obama Joe Biden, Obama, Schools, Teachers, Living News
Esther Wojcicki

Tthe National Writing Project together with Google Docs is sponsoring a program called Letters to Our Next President, to encourage young Americans to write to the candidates.

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World Economic Hangover

John Feffer | Posted 07.21.2008 | Politics

Read More: Hangover, G8, Wto, Officious Language, World Trade Organization, Poor Writing, Writing, Bureaucracy, Politics News
John Feffer

My hands tremble when I open a document from the World Trade Organization. The language is either boring, technical, or obscure. But when I figure out what the documents are saying, I feel even worse.

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Interview with Nancy Miller, Creator and Executive Producer of Saving Grace

Melissa Silverstein | Posted 07.14.2008 | Entertainment

Read More: Television, Cable, Saving Grace, Writing, Sexism, Holly Hunter, Women Writers, Gender, Entertainment News
Melissa Silverstein

Nancy Miller: "There are few shows about the friendships between women because it's mostly men who buy the shows that air. I just don't think they realize how much fun the dramatic relationships between women can be."

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The Carrie Bradshaw Effect

Courtney E. Martin | Posted 06.27.2008 | Media

Read More: Women, Sex and the City, Sex and the City: The Movie, Writing, Emily Gould, Vanity Fair, New York Times Magazine, Women Writers, Media News
Courtney E. Martin

Post-Carrie, we can't turn a page, web or paper, without reading about a young woman over-sharing details about her love life, while male writers dominate the "thought leader" magazines.

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Poetry Is (Anything But) Dead...

Tamsin Rothschild | Posted 06.06.2008 | Living

Read More: Literature, Book Industry, Inspiration, Tamsin Rothschild, Writing, Books, Poet, Beyond Words, Literary Magazine, Book Expo, Modern Poets, Poetry, Amazon, Bea, Living News
Tamsin Rothschild

Having just published my first book of poetry, it is incredible to me that after a couple of days at the Book Expo America they tell me that poetry is dead.

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In Defense of James Frey and Memoir

Lisa Dale Norton | Posted 05.30.2008 | Entertainment

Read More: Publishing, Bush Administration, James Frey, Autobiography, Writing, Arts, Oprah, Memoir, Obama, Media, Journalism, Narrative Nonfiction, Mcclellan, Entertainment News
Lisa Dale Norton

The function of a memoir is to make a truth about a life lived that resonates in the bones of the writer and sends out shock waves of recognition to readers.

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At Least She's Writing...

Marcia Meier | Posted 05.30.2008 | Media

Read More: Blogosphere, Literacy, Emily Gould, Reading, Writing, New York Times, Blogging, Media News
Marcia Meier

Emily Gould landed on the cover of The New York Times Magazine over the weekend and created a firestorm of criticism and vitriol. Here's the good news: At least she's writing.

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