Another holiday, another Jon Cotner holiday slideshow. Here he and his wife took to the streets of New York City and “asked 25 strangers to tell [them] their holiday wish.” (Previously.)
A Holiday with Strangers
$50,000 / Free
Michael Kimball wants to save you $50,000 dollars on an MFA – by sharing what’s he taught himself. Interested in reading more from someone without a traditional writing degree? Our own Hannah Gersen explains “The Value of Writing Programs: On Why I Don’t Have an MFA.”
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Kill Your Crutches
“Other favorites I’ve found myself overusing include ‘she nodded,’ ‘she raised her eyebrows,’ and ‘she walked home slowly / she slowly walked home.’” Maria Murnane writes for the Amazon Author Insights blog (full disclosure: Amazon helps us keep the lights on around here!) about how to watch out for crutch words.
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“Afro Picks” Image & Pun Draws Criticism
The cover image of this week’s Publisher’s Weekly, which centers around an annual feature on African American book publishing, is drawing a lot of attention, mostly negative. Read PW senior news editor Calvin Reid‘s explanation/mea culpa.
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CSI Amsterdam
“We are not trying to point fingers or prosecute. I am just trying to solve the last case of my career. There is no statute of limitation on the truth.” A retired FBI agent has launched a cold case review into identifying those who may have betrayed Anne Frank‘s hiding place to the Gestapo in 1944, reports The Guardian.
An Animated Bradbury
“You write to please yourself. You write for the joy of writing. … The enthusiasm, the joy itself draws me. So that means every day of my life I’ve written. When the joy stops, I’ll stop writing.” Recommended viewing: an animated interview with Ray Bradbury.
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The Incredible Shrinking Class Structure
The Daily Beast interviews Tom Wolfe, who argues that America, more than two decades after The Bonfire of the Vanities, is a place where people “cannot act as if they are part of a superior class.” (For context, you might want to look at our own Nick Moran’s review of his latest, Back to Blood.)
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