Writer’s block: the eternal struggle, right? Thankfully, Ted Scheinman asked some of his favorite writers for their remedies, and he compiled them into a helpful list. “Do try these solutions, alone or in combination,” he urges. “’Mix and match’ is the cry.” (Related: You can also check out the “daily routines of famous creative people” for inspiration, as well.)
Dealing with Writer’s Block
Occupy a Classroom
NYU students can take a 4-credit undergraduate course on Occupy Wall Street and America’s debt issues this spring. According to the university’s website, this year’s tuition costs start at $19,672.
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Make Way for Ward
Jesmyn Ward signed a deal for two books with Simon & Schuster: one adult novel with Scribner and the other a middle-grade novel with Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, according to Publisher’s Weekly. From our archives: Ward’s 2017 Year in Reading entry and our interview with the two-time National Book Award winner.
Early Chaucer Manuscript Put Online for All to See
The “Hengwrt Chaucher,” one of the most significant early manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales, has been put online for the entire world to see thanks to the efforts of the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.
Dictionary Panics
Recommended reading: on dictionary-related panics from The New Yorker. Pair with our own Bill Morris‘s Millions essay “Prescriptivists vs. Descriptivists: The Fifth Edition of The American Heritage Dictionary.”
Best (and Worst) Book Trailers
Melville House announced its Moby Award winners the week for book trailers in a number of serious and silly categories. (Full disclosure: I was a judge)
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Night Watch
Recommended Reading: Thomas Dylan Eaton on the Austrian writer Peter Handke.
Found in Translation
“The night of the typhoon, the sky was full, the world destroyed.” Eleanor Goodman is one of 13 translators who won the PEN/Heim Translation Fund this year. Goodman won for her translation of Chinese poet Wang Xiaoni’s collection, Something Crosses My Mind, which will be published by Zephyr Press.
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Pray for Me
After working on his novel Family Life for seven years, Akhil Sharma began to lose his mind. Whenever he sat down to write, he began having panic attacks, the kind that left his chest feeling “constantly bruised” for months on end. Eventually, he hit on a solution: he learned to take his mind off his novel by praying for other people.
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