In one episode of the Curious George cartoon, the man in the yellow hat says, “Magnetism is my favorite invisible force!” My family loved that line and we’ve found a surprising number of opportunities to use it in real life. At the 2014 Director’s Choice program last weekend, Pacific Northwest Ballet made a convincing argument for some of the others – and I’m not talking about gravity. Read More
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First Impressions and Take Home Lessons: AWP Conference
As a testament to how overwhelming AWP can be, I forgot to take pictures all 3 days. This is my book fair haul.
I wasn’t going to attend the Association of Writers and Writing Programs 2014 conference. AWP is rooted, as the name implies, in academic programs and has a literary focus that is only tangential to the technical and journalistic writing I usually do. But I want more “creative” in my nonfiction. Some thirteen thousand people from all over the U.S. traveled to Seattle for the event; I didn’t even have to change my morning commute (same bus, three stops early). It seemed like the universe was handing me an opportunity. So with little more preparation than a warning about people in pointy shoes, I signed up for three days of literary frenzy. Read More
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Book Report: The Weirdness
If the importance of book cover design was ever in question, the art for Jeremy P. Bushnell’s debut novel, The Weirdness, should put all doubt to rest.
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February 2014: Statistically Speaking
I don’t know much about VIDA – no, I don’t mean “life,” although I’ve got plenty to learn there, too. I mean VIDA, the organization that formed in 2009 to create more space for women in the literary dialogue.
Having just attended the 2014 conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (more on that to come), I can confidently say that the representation of women in the community of people who identify themselves as writers is proportionate to the general population. But every year, VIDA undertakes a painstaking manual survey of literary publications and book reviews (think Audubon here) that quantifies women’s bylines, and the number of books written by women that get reviewed. The results are highly illuminating.
ByGD
People of the Book: Report
In preparation for Iceland Writers Retreat, I am reading books by each of the featured authors. It feels a little weird to review authors who are about to become my teachers, but it’s easier to read critically when I know I have to report on it afterwards. I had already read Geraldine Brooks’ Year of Wonders; I enjoyed it as a reader. As a writer I enjoyed trying to understand her choices: writing about survival instead of adventure, building an overtly feminist story within a culture that was anything but. My library holds on the remaining authors hadn’t come in yet, so I started People of the Book. By the second page, her Sam Spade of a protagonist had grabbed me by the throat, and she didn’t let go until days after I finished reading. Read More