Entries from December 2009
Dec. 31, 2009
Dickens and Me
I have been reading Little Dorrit the last couple of weeks and I am engrossed, even though life has been a little chaotic. I have been working feverishly on my own new novel, cranking out the last few chapters in rough draft. At the same time, my kids are on school vacation and our house [...]
Tags: Charles Dickens · Little Dorrit
Dec. 28, 2009
A friendly reviewer, at last
My friend Doug Cornelius has a nice review of Mission Flats over at his blog. Doug also writes for GeekDad over on Wired, among his various other web platforms. Check him out. And thanks, Doug!
Tags: Mission Flats
Dec. 26, 2009
Drawing Moby-Dick
Artist Matt Kish draws Moby Dick one page at a time.
Tags: Herman Melville · Moby-Dick
Dec. 22, 2009
How Writers Write: Edwidge Danticat
The writing process of Edwige Danticat
Tags: Edwidge Danticat · How Writers Write
Dec. 20, 2009
The View from Below: A midlist author watches the ebook wars
The publishing industry is a futures market – a Silicon Valley for books, with every publisher a venture capitalist searching for the Next Big Thing.
Tags: Amazon · ebooks · featured posts
Dec. 17, 2009
“Your Whole Reading Life, Always With You”
Michael Tamblyn’s presentation at the O’Reilly TOC conference in Frankfurt, October 13, 2009. (Actually this is Tamblyn’s recreation of the talk, which was apparently not recorded.) Tamblyn, of Softcovers, discusses what is missing from the current ebook experience.
Tags: ebooks · Michael Tamblyn · video
Dec. 16, 2009
Dickens vs. the Snarks
To a reader, Dickens absorbs, the web distracts.
Tags: Charles Dickens · featured posts · Little Dorrit
Dec. 16, 2009
Publishing Agonistes
The major publishers are in a difficult position: they are service companies that function like manufacturing companies — 20th century businesses in a 21st century economy. The control of the book business is gradually slipping out of their hands. — William Petrocelli, “No One Warned the Dinosaurs. Will Anyone Warn the Publishers?”
Tags: ebooks
Dec. 16, 2009
John Irving: “A need to be alone”
“I recognized at a pretty early age — certainly I was pre-teens — I noticed that the school day was enough of the day to spend with my friends. I seemed to have a need to … be alone.” I am sure this is a common characteristic of writers, even gregarious ones. Certainly I needed to [...]
Tags: creativity · interviews · John Irving · video
Dec. 9, 2009
Maugham: “great suspicion of posterity”
“I have great suspicion of posterity. I’m quite prepared to be entirely forgotten five years after my death.” Somerset Maugham in a 1958 interview with the CBC. (via) More about Maugham here.
Tags: interviews · Somerset Maugham · video
