For my Columbia Publishing Course peeps, here's a list in progress: JAVA The Chipped Cup (Hamilton Heights/ Harlem) š friendly environment get there early enough and you'll find a seat amazing coffee š¦ can get crowded near 148th/broadway--not an unsafe era (I lived there for a year) but needs some aesthetic tlc; you may want…Read more Best cafes/museums to write at in NYC
Ventures
1 swell paragraph from Joan Didion
Swam through Joan Didion's "South and West," scattered notes and essays (mostly about visiting the south) and came across this gem. For me basically confirms why she's the best:
Journal vs. Diary vs. Notebook
Not necessarily for the better, but the form of a journal nudges your thinking into becoming more linear, in-depth, focused, and comprehensible for a reader with a quick eye and probable impatience. It encourages that word that most writers hate yet desperately needādiscipline.
Review! Maggie O’Farrell’s 17 Brushes with Death
O'Farrell brings the reader into her experience, our common experience, and makes them shiver with wonder and delight that they have (for the time being) escaped, as Dickens put it, Our Mutual Friend.
What’s the difference between personal narrative and memoir?
Personal narrative vs memoir This goes out to my writing students who scratch their head over my presumptuous ass throwing āpersonal narrativeā and āmemoirā around like they should automatically know the differences. In my understanding, personal narrative is using your lifeās story to illume some larger issue: mental health, intersectional, feminism, racism, nature, border walls.…Read more What’s the difference between personal narrative and memoir?
AWP 2018, some hot reads
One of the abiding pleasures of AWP is finding work you wouldn't have touched otherwise.
Male figure skating has forever changed
Last night, I finally saw the world of male figure skating shift. Last night I finally saw a space where itās okay to be gay. Better yet, itās cool to be straight too and to show emotion. I saw male figure skaters exhibit gestures they couldnāt have done 20 years ago. I heard commentators support rather than eviscerate the competitors. I finally sensed an arena where U.S. boys and men could express themselvesāthe serious, the stalwart, the silly, the queerāall were welcome.
