Notebook Versus Laptop
I work in a tech company where most of the employees hover around the age of thirty. They grew up with computers. They are experts in Apple devices. They live and die by technology. I come in as the oldster…
Category: Authors
Friday Feast: A Guide to Writing Fat Characters, Book Prices & Writing Value, Writers of Color Roundtable, an Anti-HB2 Book Tour of North Carolina, and Judy Blume on Independent Bookstores
Like a lot of high school graduates, Judy Blume had planned to take a gap year — after writing her last novel. But the opportunity to open a book shop, Books & Books in Key West, was too tempting to resist….
YA Wednesday: BookCon, Children’s Literature History & Trends
BookExpo America (BEA), the book industry’s long-running trade expo, took place in Chicago last week. Within BEA, teens and YA book lovers convened at BookCon, a convention for book lovers that combined storytelling and pop culture in a daylong event….
Craft on Draft: Writing Fiction from Real Life
At last month’s Craft on Draft event Michelle Hoover, Emily Ross, and Dawn Tripp shared how truth inspired their fiction. In addition to reading excerpts from their novels and revealing what was influenced by fact, the authors selected the event’s…
Friday Feast: Rejection and Success, Book Marketing Master Spreadsheet, Colum McCann’s Advice to Young Writers, Books in Tiny Houses, and Badass Book Dedications
Much like Amanda Nelson of Book Riot (we love them and always end up sharing their work), I’m obsessed with Tiny Homes (to be fair, she’s only fascinated). I’ve wondered where I’ll put my food — forget clothing storage, I can survive with…
Looking the Sphinx in the Eyes
The first page of Jenny Erpenbeck’s amazing 2014 novel The End of Days (Aller Tage Abend in German, available in English from New Directions) has to rank among the most agonizingly beautiful—and thematically apt—novel openings ever written: “The Lord gave,…