“Does handwriting matter?” That’s the question some researchers are working to answer and that Maria Konnikova tackles in a piece for The New York Times. The article ends by suggesting that “with handwriting, the very act of putting it down forces you to focus on what’s important… maybe it helps you think better,” which is doubtlessly encouraging to every writer who works on their drafts in longhand.
Write This Down
Dem O’s
Recommended Reading: Laura Bogart on growing up in Baltimore.
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“Did you know that the Bosphorus is drying up?”
Orhan Pamuk paints a nightmarish picture of the land laid bare when the Bosphorus dries up.
Sanitize and Simplify
Recommended reading: The New York Times reports on a growing literary trend - YA nonfiction.
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Labyrinths
Recommended recommendations: "Five books that are also labyrinths," including Italo Calvino's The Castle of Crossed Destinies and Lily Hoang's Changing.
The Ideal Essay
"An ideal essay is hard to define, but easy to point to. An ideal essay mines the “I” in efforts of high exposition. It is driven by a need to testify or witness, and demands the same of its reader. It is a glimpse of something uncomfortably recognizable, a requiem for the quotidian, a look over the newly-gilded edge." Samantha Tucker Iacovetto writes about "Defining the Ideal Essay" for Brevity's Nonfiction Blog
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Ciao, Napoli
Elena Ferrante uses a pseudonym. We may not know her given name, but we do know her home city - Naples. Read about realism in her work from Irene Caselli, who also calls Naples home. Want to know more about Ferrante? She does interviews.
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