Professor Selina Todd argues that you can be taught to write well, as demonstrated by American and Australian university students. Plus letters from Christopher Dodd and Anthony OrmsonIan Jack’s wariness towards writing manuals and classes is a peculiarly British response to teaching this craft (So you want to write better sentences than Jane Austen?, 27 May. While visiting Australian universities a few years ago, I was pleasantly surprised by the fluency and clarity of the (history) students’ prose. It turned out they were taught to write – not by rote learning grammar, which is the only form of pedagogy recognised by the current British government, but in lively writing workshops that encouraged them to believe that anyone, given time and hard work, could write well. Conversations with American colleagues revealed a similar mindset and introduced me to the American writer William Zinsser, whose book On Writing Well I recommend to all my students. Zinsser’s democratic premise is that good writing is the result of hard work, not innate “talent”. That’s a radical realisation for many British students, brought up with the gentlemanly myth that talent is hereditary, effortless and looks a lot like a public schoolboy.It is no coincidence that Zinsser spent part of his career at the New School in New York, the self-declared “comprehensive university”. In Britain, the adult education movement, including the Workers’ Educational Association, and the Open University, has... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2017-05-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Professor Selina Todd argues that you can be taught to write well, as demonstrated by American and Australian university students. Plus letters from Christopher Dodd and Anthony OrmsonIan Jack’s wariness towards writing manuals and classes is a peculiarly British response to teaching this craft... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-05-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#women writers
Artificial intelligence is the holy grail of the information age and the hot topic du jour. The hype was triggered by the revolutionary chatbot ChatGPT, which has turned our concept of non-human intelligence on its head. With a few key words, the AI creates seemingly authentic essays... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2024-10-15 10:30:00 UTC ]
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#playback speed
At last, competency trumped loyalty.Mayor Eric Adams this week elevated Maria Torres-Springer — a deeply experienced public servant with allies in the business, real estate and nonprofit communities — to the number-two job at City Hall. The move elicited a collective sigh of relief that some... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2024-10-11 10:03:49 UTC ]
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Times are hard for print media in Saskatchewan. This is true for Indigenous-focused news outlets just like any other. But some are adapting to change and hoping to inspire the next generation of Indigenous journalists. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2024-08-19 10:00:00 UTC ]
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#hard times
Letter to Mohamed Choukri: Writing between Silence and Prattle, by Mohamed Berrada Cultural Cross Sections [email protected] Wed, 08/07/2024 - 15:25 Mohamed Choukri (left) and Mohamed Berrada / Photo courtesy the estate of Mohamed ChoukriIn the... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2024-08-07 20:25:04 UTC ]
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'The Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud,' copublished by Rowman & Littlefield and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, took three decades for editor and translator Mark Solms to complete. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-08-01 04:00:00 UTC ]
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At Restless Books, Black Lawrence Press, and Academic Studies Press, first-generation American editors want to hear from writers with cross-cultural stories to tell. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-07-26 04:00:00 UTC ]
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After 11 years, Jason Pinter's small press fell under the weight of a host of issues all too familiar to indie publishers. But his elegance under the pressure of handling the collapse—including the rehoming of 60% of Polis's 171-title backlist—stands out. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-05-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It’s not pretty but conference calls at dawn keep us showing up. We’ve got novels to write, which is the only work we really want to doGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastWhen you work solo, peer accountability is sacred.Three mornings a week I set my alarm... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-05-30 00:56:10 UTC ]
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“We are a literary city”: Will Evans started saying it in 2013, when he started the publisher Deep Vellum. Alongside the bookstore Wild Detectives and others, they’ve put Dallas on the literary map. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-04-25 09:05:49 UTC ]
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The Suede bassist and author on writing without a safety net, terrifying himself for his next novel and which of the Thursday Murder Club books – by his brother Richard – he likes bestMat Osman is, along with Brett Anderson, a founding and current member of the band Suede, and the author of two... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-03-23 18:00:26 UTC ]
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Her solution? A packaging business that sells ideas for commercial genre fiction featuring characters from broadly diverse backgrounds. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-12-10 10:00:31 UTC ]
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The much-acclaimed Irish author of Small Things Like These on her quietly devastating new story and why George Saunders wouldn’t read it aloud for a podcastClaire Keegan’s five books to date run to just 700 pages and some 140,000 words. “I love to see prose being written economically,” she tells... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-09-02 17:00:10 UTC ]
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Some in the book industry have already begun exploring automation of its pitches to readers. We took this functionality for a test drive“Blurb writing is a mini art form,” Iris Murdoch once wrote in a letter to former Penguin blurb writer Elizabeth Buchan. And like many other art forms,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-05-16 09:00:05 UTC ]
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Working-class lives are unlikely to be properly represented in fiction if the publishing industry is run by middle-class graduates, says Nick MossKeiran Goddard is right to say that too many novels that claim to portray working-class life just give us “recent arts graduate feels emotionally,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-04-30 16:40:05 UTC ]
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A new memoir traces the three-time Tony Award winner’s life and career working with Balanchine, Robbins and Fosse. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-04-19 09:00:33 UTC ]
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Stephen Carver, Guinevere Glasfurd, Brian Needham and Jo McMillan respond to Joanne Harris’s article about horribly low pay in the publishing worldRegarding Joanne Harris’s article (Horribly low pay is pushing out my fellow authors – and yes, that really does matter, 7 December), I guess I’m a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-12-11 17:07:25 UTC ]
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‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’ is one of the best-known short stories by Flannery O’Connor (1925-64), who produced a string of powerful stories during her short life. First published in the collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find in 1955, the story is about an American family […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2022-09-26 14:00:41 UTC ]
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What makes for a good book club question? Here are some tips to consider before your next book club meeting. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2022-09-09 10:37:00 UTC ]
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I remember the first time I met Courtney Maum. It was nearly ten years ago, a spring or maybe summer day in Brooklyn, Carroll Gardens. We were both in our twenties, no books published yet, just a few free essays here and there, just starting our writing careers with the fierce intensity of Jack... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-07-18 08:52:29 UTC ]
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