Writers and Editors

On a memoir-writers-for-hire listserv. someone asked, apropos Sarah Palin’s current book, Is it okay to use a memoir to get even with those you feel have harmed you in the past? This excellent response from Susan Owen is reposted here by permission:
“This is a free country and people have the right to act as inappropriately as they wish. About the line between truth and fiction, which is often hazy, here's my response:  Read More 

The fall 2009 newsletter of the Center for Digital Storytelling ("listen deeply, tell stories") lists five core areas it's going to cover: Stories of Health, Silence Speaks (stories to fight gender-based violence), Read More 

Check out Mosaic Magazine (an archive of articles published by the National Science Foundation's flagship magazine, 1970-92) and Like a Phoenix (Earle Holland's "On Research" blog about that period of rich science writing)

In How to Write a Great Novel, WSJ reporter Alexandra Alter interviews 11 top authors on their methods for getting the story on the page. Junot Díaz writes in the bathroom, Nicholson Baker dresses in character, Amitav Ghosh uses black ink Pelikan  Read More 

Watch the production process for the deluxe version of a classic visual dictionary in John Carrera's video Pictorial Webster's. Price per volume: $4600. Great way to see how a linotype press works and how a craftsman does fine binding.  Read More 

Do you want to hire (or be) a developmental editor, substantive editor, copy editor, production editor, assignment editor, or proofreader (to name some choices)? Read up on the differences and different levels of edit:

• Becoming an Editor (from the blog, This Crazy Industry)
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Writing about food and meals is a good way of getting at family dynamics and core memories, because so many of our interactions with family, good or bad, are associated with shared meals. For foodies, a good food memoir or biography offers delight on several levels and often sends us into the kitchen to recreate a scene! I've departed from listing only memoirs  Read More