Word Pirates

Frank Wilson has been reviewing books professionally since October, 1964. For most of the past decade he was Books Editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer… He retired recently. About five years ago he started blogging at Books Inq…

You can hear an interview with Wilson here.

More controversy over VQR’s airing of nasty comments its editorial folks made over submissions. This time, Howard Junker, editor of Zyzzyva, is speaking out against the blog post, asking, “Since when are Genoways and his minions entitled to Righteous Indignation while winnowing the infinite chaff from the most rare wheat?”
Now Ted Genoways from VQR […]

I enjoyed what Stephen Corey at Georgia Review had to say about the short story in the most recent issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
If you are truly serious about doing distinctive work that will make its mark, slow down.

A great poem or story or essay is not a line on a vita, a selling […]

One of the core beliefs of Word Pirates is that writing should be entertaining. It should have a pace, avoid being self-indulgent, and keep the reader’s attention span in mind. I think the reason so few people read lit journals and anthologies these days is because so much of them are frankly boring. I mean, […]

I like how Virginia Quarterly Review has changed in the last few years, and perhaps that’s why I think this post is beneath them. Their blog has a list of comments their editorial readers made on rejected submissions. Here are some of their “brutal” thoughts, which they journal thinks should be on the web […]

Terry Gross has an interview with Lloyd Schwartz, who recently co-edited Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose and Letters. Schwartz established a friendship with the reclusive poet toward the end of her life.
At one point, Bishop was in the hospital, so she asked Schwartz to get some of her things from her home–including her notebook. At some […]

Vladimir Nabokov’s son says he will publish his father’s unfinished work “The Original of Laura” rather than destroying it. Since Nabokov’s death in 1977, his son Dmitri has been torn about whether he should follow his father’s last wishes and destroy the novel or share the work of a great 20th-century novelist with the world. […]

There’s an interesting, heated conversation going on at this blog about whether editors of literary journals solicit work instead of digging from the slush pile. Then, the writer from the aforementioned Writer, Rejected (which is fast becoming one of my favorite writing blogs, I must say) questioned whether editors should be soliciting work in the […]

Rejection is a part of writing. (Well, it is unless you don’t try to get your writing published.) However, it’s a part of writing that a lot of us don’t talk about with each other. It can be humiliating, demoralizing and sad. Or it can be funny.
On Literary Rejections on Display, one writer shared some […]

Hollywood is a mess and the studios are blaming the writers. Now that the writers are back at work after the strike, the studios are restricting raises and reluctant to make new deals, according to this fascinating article in Variety.
In the same way that some execs were convinced that WGA leaders were hell-bent on striking, […]

Is the Orange Prize sexist? The all-woman literature prize has been won by writers I deeply admire, like Ann Patchett and Margaret Atwood. But then, here’s someone else I deeply admire–AS Byatt–saying that “such a prize was never needed.”
This is a tough issue. After all, the traditional canon of English literature is dominated by white […]

Steve Moran, a judge for an English contest called the Willesden Herald short story competition, wrote a list of reasons why he rejects short stories. It starts out with common critiques such as too many characters or weak endings and quickly descends into a highly personalized and whimsical list. For example:
Ankles. Particularly ankles in Asia. […]

“Mail & Guardian” has a commentary by Tim Lott called “Whatever happened to literary love?” In it he says that stories about love are becoming rare, though they were once the standard of great literature.
Richard Curtis, screenwriter of “Four Weddings and Funeral,” “Notting Hill” and “Love Actually,” brings the point home:
“If you write a […]

I have a really hard time coming up with titles for things that I write, or naming things in general. After coming up with a killer first sentence, I forget that the first thing people will actually read is the damn title.
I normally end up with a boring title, erring on the safe side so […]

Kelly Spitzer of “SmokeLong Quarterly” and Ellen Parker of “FRiGG” ask a group of writers about money … Do you only write for publications that pay? Do you pay reading fees and contest entry fees?
They seemed to agree that pay wasn’t a concern when considering where to submit their stories.
Dave Clapper, also of “SmokeLong Quarterly,” […]

Zadie Smith refused to award a prize in a contest she was judging because no one was good enough for her.
This is a difficult thing to write. Just like everybody, we at The Willesden Herald are concerned about the state of contemporary literature. We are depressed by the cookie-cutter process of contemporary publishing, the lack […]

I am torn. The person who wrote this is one of those self-satisfied people I usually ignore, and yet I rather agree with his 101 Reasons to Stop Writing so far. Especially No. 1: You Don’t Buy Books.
One of the things I got from the Word Pirates’ experiment with NaNoWriMo: By the end of the […]

The reason I like Jeffrey Eugenides is that he has written two books that are complete visions, richly drawn, and utterly unlike each other in story and style. Not many writers can do that. So I figure if he takes 10 years to write something unique from his other books, he is still doing […]

Memoirs are tricky business. As someone who writes almost exclusively about things that have happened to me, I am interested in the ethics and conventions of the memoir. James Frey aside, there was also the whole hullabaloo with Augusten Burroughs settling with the foster family portrayed in “Running With Scissors” and changing the author’s note […]

One of my favorite blogs is Chicks Dig Poetry by poet Sandra Beasley. Today’s post had insight to the short essay:
There’s a musculature to the short essay (under 1,000 words) that is really winning me over. “Just enough time to open a subject, expand it, and close it again,” said my friend Richard. Just […]

In response to Marcia’s last post, I feel inclined to point out yet another example of editors missing the boat:
The frustrated efforts of Catherine O’Flynn, a former postwoman who tried and failed 15 times to get her work published, were finally rewarded yesterday when her first book was shortlisted for the £25,000 Costa Book Awards.
O’Flynn, […]

The debate on the health of the short story continues in this post by Larry Dark on the blog Critical Mass. (Ha! I originally typed “Mess”.) Dark, who has judged important short story contests, maintains that the short story is doing fine, citing all the literary magazines that are out there and the fact […]

This morning, I was reading about Oulipo, a French school of poetry that tried to find new structures and patterns for poetry. Some examples:
Queneau’s Exercices de Style (Exercises in Style), in which he tells the same simple story ninety-nine times, each in a different style.
“Singular Pleasures” by Harry Mathews (the only American member of Oulipo) […]

Stephen King said what I’ve been thinking about short stories for The New York Times last week. But, oddly, the Grumpy Old Bookman does an even better job of summing up King’s problems with the short story:
And [King] puts his finger very precisely on what is wrong with the modern short […]

The Guardian Unlimited book blog has an interesting post about translating poetry. Really, I think it pertains to translating most writing that is not soley instructional or informational.
Some people would disagree, saying poetry in translation is the wrong side of the tapestry - it just can’t be done. But they are talking about replication, not […]

There is something intimidating and off-putting about writing in a journal for me. I am a type to get obsessed with how nice the book of paper looks and whether or not I am using a good pen or crossing things out and making the page look ugly. Also, I begin to focus on what […]

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know. –Ernest Hemingway.
What is a true sentence? This page has some ideas. A true sentence:

shows instead of tells
uses sense words
uses active verbs
does not use the following forms of the verb “to be”: is; are; was; were; has, […]