“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.
Kill Your Crutches
Secret Tricks
Lisa Dilling writes about translating Yuri Herrera’s genius. Pair with this Millions essay about translators at work.
Football Book Club: Bye Week
It’s bye week over at Football Book Club. And while there’s no new book to read this week — everybody’s resting up, licking their wounds, and sticking pins in Jay Cutler voodoo dolls — you, gentle reader, should be sure to check in for new posts on Louisa Hall’s Speak — and Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts.
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A Detestable Dichotomy
Paulo Coelho recently condemned Ulysses for being all style and no content. In response, Ali Smith makes the case for style.
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Once Upon a Time In Japan
You will not want to miss this possibly true ghost story from David Mitchell over at LitHub. This piece comes from the first installment of Freeman’s, which is out now, and which includes such fantastic writers as Mitchell, Haruki Murakami, and Louise Erdrich.
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Overhearing the Wisdom
Recommended Listening: Poet Rachel Zucker speaks with John Murillo about duende and the ethics of writing poetry.
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Beautiful Sentence Diagrams
The idea of having to diagram a sentence still gives us nightmares, but Pop Chart Lab has diagrammed opening lines of famous novels, including those as simple as Slaughterhouse-Five and as complex as Don Quixote.
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