So there I was, working on a short story that took over my brain, right when I ought to be working on the book that took over my brain when I was supposed to be working on the new Sarah Tolerance book. (For those following along at home: 1) Sarah Tolerance Book < 2) Urban Fantasy Thing < 3) Short Story. This is why Madeleine cannot have nice things.) So I want to finish this story. When its finished I can go back to #2, so I can return to… Read more Xeno’s Ending →
Many writers (I won’t say all writers, because I don’t know them all, but at this point I think I have a pretty decent random sample) know a bunch of different weird things. Many writers (see above caveat) were probably the sorts of kids who stored up random factoids, or had deep pools of info about odd things, or could list all the kings of England from Edward the Confessor onward (that used to be one of my parlor tricks, along with reciting the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales). Many… Read more The Things I Know, The Things You Know →
I read an article on Salon a few years ago: “Is Michael Pollan a Sexist Pig?” by a writer named Emily Matchar. The title is, of course, very tongue in cheek; the article is about the omnivore/ locavore/ femivore movements, and about the myths we make up about the past. In this case, the past in question is the good ol’ days of cookery from the writers’ childhoods, and how much better everything was in the days before feminism led us to processed food. Now, all things being equal I like to… Read more “How Feminism Killed Cooking” →
I have a friend I don’t see very often. When I do, and we’re catching up, she launches into stories about her life that are interlarded with names and events of which I know nothing. It means that I feel both bewildered and shut out. I think she believes that because she knows all these things I, as her friend, must know them too. But it frustrates me, and I’m pretty sure that’s not her intent. There are books like that, too. I love twisty stories that demand my full… Read more Tell Me →
I love the work of Sinclair Lewis. Even though I know better. Even when his prose is didactic and braying and he can’t make up his mind who he most disdains: country folk, city folk, religious folk, doctors, lawyers, academics, politicians. Ever since high school I have felt like I needed to apologize, maybe even join a 12-step program, for my fascination with Lewis. And yet fascinated I am. Why apologize? Lewis is respectable, albeit not much in fashion these days. He gave us the terms “Main Street” and “Babbit.”… Read more Miss Vickers Does Not Regret →
I wonder, sometimes, if anyone writing for TV has ever met a child. Or anyone writing for film. Or even just writing fiction. So often, kids appear in one of… Read more For God’s Sake, Think of the Children →
It would be difficult to find a neighborhood more concentrated with left-leaning intelligentsia than the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Which is not to say there are not conservatives, curmudgeons, and random people who think the world is going to hell in a handbag, but the traditional Person On The Street on the Upper West Side is likely, at the very least, to be four-square for the First Amendment. Which is why my daughter burning a book on the sidewalk occasioned considerable outrage.
This is a piece that originally appeared in 2012 in the Book View Cafe blog. Sherwood Smith had a very interesting post on her Live Journal about writer-brains, persistence, and careers. It comes down to (in my reading): most writers aren’t in it for the money or the fame, but for other, less tangible benefits. This can seem inexplicable to the writer’s family, friends, and the genpop. In some ways I’m luckier than many of my colleagues, whose families didn’t get any of this and tried to apply the standard… Read more 50 Shades of Perseverance →