How to Write a Roger Federer Think Piece

It has been a bit more than nine years since David Foster Wallace delivered “Federer as Religious Experience,” the Magna Carta of what has become one of the most popular genres in sports journalism: the Roger Federer think piece. The now-classic essay, penned for the short-lived New York Times sports magazine Play, inaugurated a run of dominance virtually without parallel in modern sports writing. As the 2015 U.S. Open closes, Federer’s place as the most artfully described tennis player in ATP history is secure; his long career has inspired many, including such luminaries as Tom Perrotta, L. Jon Wertheim, Calvin Tomkins, and Julian Barnes, to exquisitely articulate his physical presence. He’s even inspired multiple acclaimed books: In addition to Wertheim’s Strokes of Genius—about a single match Federer played against Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2008—William Skidelsky, the former literary editor of the Observer, released a well-received book in Britain this past summer, Federer and Me: A Story of Obsession. (It will be published in the United States by Simon & Schuster in the spring.) Continue reading at 'Slate'

[ Slate | 2015-09-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #julian barnes #physical presence #rafael nadal #literary editor #past summer #simon schuster

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Struggling authors know writing is a rich person’s hobby | Letters

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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Amazon Kindle Scribe Review: Read and Write on this Pricey Ebook Reader

You can read ebooks, write notes, or mark up PDFs on this new slate, but your wallet will feel a lot lighter. Continue reading at Wired

[ Wired | 2022-12-08 14:00:00 UTC ]
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What Running Has Taught Me About Writing (and Vice Versa)

I’m a daily runner. When I run varies, depending on the day’s contours, but I always lace up and head out. Earbuds in, audiobook on, running app ready to track my slow miles along semi-rural roads. Often, I don’t want to go. No matter how much I practice, I find running difficult. When I was […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-12-08 09:53:23 UTC ]
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Cherríe Moraga on Writing About Queer Motherhood

As a cultivated writing praxis, creative nonfiction allows for a broader panorama of experience than a genre restricted to the empirical. It is one which permits dreams to presage and queer bodies to serve as repositories of memory. With the best of intentions, I believe Waiting in the Wings, my... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-12-07 09:51:50 UTC ]
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Writing the Historical Mystery Novel: Jane Smiley Explains Her Process

Jane Smiley is a master of plot, with multiple awards for her novels, including the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle award for A Thousand Acres (King Lear as set on an Iowa farm circa 1979). She’s also distilled her years of teaching and cultural criticism into a superb writing... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-12-06 09:53:58 UTC ]
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How Mastodon and federated services put social networks in the people’s hands

The Internet is getting weird again. Twitter’s recent stumbles under new ownership have surprisingly shined a quick light on the world of federated and decentralized social networking services, like Mastodon. These services are peer-to-peer or community-run networks, depending on the... Continue reading at PC World

[ PC World | 2022-11-30 11:45:00 UTC ]
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Ada Calhoun and Maud Newton on the Revelations We Gain From Writing

The Miami Book Fair began as a two-day event in November 1984, when a small group of determined individuals—including educators from Miami Dade College, independent booksellers, and librarians—founded Miami Book Fair International. In the nearly 40 years since, Miami Book Fair has grown into one... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-11-22 09:51:48 UTC ]
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How Jane Austen Almost Walked Away From Writing

If you’re a literary genius, you’ve got it easy—right? Wrong. Even Jane Austen, indisputably one of the greatest novelists in the English language, spent years struggling to be published and became so dispirited that there were moments when she almost walked away. The story begins with an... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-11-18 09:54:04 UTC ]
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Choosing to Bear Witness: Writing the Story of a Body

My clearest memory of my freshman year of college takes place in the emergency room of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where I was studying English Literature at Boston University and living on the eighteenth floor of Warren Towers, in Tower C, in a room with southern exposure. Despite... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-11-17 09:53:52 UTC ]
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How ‘Dead Souls’ Taught Mel Brooks What Comedy Writing Could Be

“I’d never read anything like it,” says the actor and director, whose memoir “All About Me!” is newly out in paperback. “It was hysterically funny and incredibly moving at the same time. It’s like Gogol stuck a pen in his heart, and it didn’t even go through his mind on its way to the page.” Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-11-10 10:00:12 UTC ]
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Sandra Simonds on Piecing Together Poetic Puzzles

Sandra Simonds is the award-winning author of eight books of poetry: Triptychs (Wave Books, November 2022), Atopia (Wesleyan University Press, 2019), Orlando (Wave Books, 2018), Further Problems with Pleasure, winner of the 2015 Akron Poetry Prize from the University of Akron Press, Steal It... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-11-10 09:52:10 UTC ]
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What I Write in My Journal is Just for Me (It is Not My Memoir)

I wrote in my journal this morning. I am not going to disclose its contents to you here, on this page, on Beyoncé’s internet. What I write in my journal, its unfiltered stream of consciousness, is just for me. A memoir is not a journal. * Also this morning: I wrote up to the very […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-10-28 08:57:23 UTC ]
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Mary Karr on Navigating Memory While Writing Memoir

The following is an excerpt from Joy Harjo’s The Art of Memoir and appeared in Lit Hub’s The Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. * At unexpected points in life, everyone gets waylaid by the colossal force of recollection. One minute you’re a grown-ass woman, then a whiff of cumin conjures... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-10-21 08:53:59 UTC ]
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Why Lydia Millet writes about what frightens her most

Lydia Millet, author of 'A Children's Bible,' joins the L.A. Times Book Club to discuss her new novel, 'Dinosaurs.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-10-10 13:00:58 UTC ]
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Jada Pinkett Smith writing memoir about life, 'complicated marriage to Will Smith'

Jada Pinkett Smith's memoir will take readers on 'a rollercoaster ride from the depths of suicidal depression to the heights of personal rediscovery.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-10-06 19:59:48 UTC ]
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Al Pacino is reportedly writing his first memoir.

As Tony Montana would probably say if he were a literary agent: In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the memoir. That’s right! Al Pacino is reportedly in talks to sell his first memoir […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-10-05 14:49:52 UTC ]
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She Writes Press and SparkPress: Hybrids That Lead by Example

When these sister hybrid houses merge their knowledge and expertise, their authors—and the entire publishing industry—benefit. (Sponsored) Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-09-11 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Rabih Alameddine on Only Writing When You Have Something to Say

Rabih Alameddine’s The Wrong End of the Telescope is out now in paperback from Grove Atlantic, so we asked him about writer’s block, the best books to re-read, and procrastinating. * How do you tackle writer’s block? I don’t, nor do I wish to anymore. Not unless I have an external deadline,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-09-09 08:53:14 UTC ]
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All Things Are Possible: Mario Vargas Llosa on the Eternal Youth of Flaubert’s Writing

Translated by Charlotte Whittle At some point in the last century, I arrived in Paris and that very day bought a copy of Madame Bovary in a bookstore called Joie de Vivre in the Latin Quarter. I stayed up nearly all night reading it and by dawn I knew what kind of writer I wanted […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-08-29 08:52:14 UTC ]
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Here are the songs Bob Dylan is writing about in his forthcoming book on “modern song.”

As some of you may already know (and sure, some of you may not care) Bob Dylan is publishing a book this November about his “philosophy of modern song” called… The Philosophy of Modern Song. If you are among those who do care (like me) the table of contents of the Nobel laureate’s foray into […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-08-26 15:37:43 UTC ]
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