Recommended Reading: László Krasznahorkai’s “I Don’t Need Anything from Here,” which might be one of the shortest sentences he’s ever written.
“I would leave everything here”
Don’t Be Her
Want to be a female travel writer? That’s great, says Jessa Crispin, just please don’t be Elizabeth Gilbert.
Chummers
I’ve written before about the First Sentence series at Granta. The magazine asks a prominent writer to explain how they came to write an opening line. Recently, they asked Bear Down, Bear North author Melinda Moustakis to talk about the beginning of her story “River So Close”: “She’s a good-for-nothing chummer.” You could also read Jonathan Russell Clark on the art of the opening sentence.
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To Essay
“For a while, shortly after I finished an undergraduate creative writing course, everything I wrote started with an observation or a realization…I was going to be an essayist, and it was going to be awesome.” At The Morning News, Martin Connelly writes about how he lost his drive to become an essayist and the surprising thing that makes him want to start again — his daughter. For more on the power of the essay, read our interview with Leslie Jamison.
Will It Have a British Accent?
Thanks to the success of the recent Muppets movie, the BBC is developing a “teatime chat show to be fronted by a new puppet.”
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Type In Your Own Handwriting
Galley Cat links to an online program that allows you to turn your handwriting into a computer font – so you can literally type in your own handwriting.
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Next Step: Skynet Becomes Self-Aware
James Harriman-Smith wants to know what humans can learn from a computer’s reading of Shakespeare’s plays. As it turns out, there’s quite a bit.