Now that I’m officially on sabbatical, I’ve been doing a lot more reading than usual. Rather than devote an entire post to reflections on each of these items, I thought I’d share some thoughts on them in smaller, bite-sized pieces.
(Note: The following contains spoilers for A Wilderness of Error, both the TV series and the book, the podcast Morally Indefensible, the Bridgerton TV series and Russian Doll)
After reading 10 popular books on creative writing in search of information on the role of research, I’ve now shifted my focus to a set of more “academic” books that are specifically about fiction writing. I say “academic” because, of all of the books on a very long list of recommended creative writing books that I found, these are the ones that are a) about fiction writing specifically and b) owned by the libraries at 20 institutions with highly respected creative writing programs at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
Today I’m taking a look at the last book on my list for this project: The Half-Known World by Robert Boswell
After reading 10 popular books on creative writing in search of information on the role of research, I’ve now shifted my focus to a set of more “academic” books that are specifically about fiction writing. I say “academic” because, of all of the books on a very long list of recommended creative writing books that I found, these are the ones that are a) about fiction writing specifically and b) owned by the libraries at 20 institutions with highly respected creative writing programs at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
Today I’m taking a look at Lectures on Literature by Vladimir Nabokov.
I’m off for the holidays and won’t be posting any new content until January but I thought I’d pin a thing here highlighting some favorite posts from this past year, organized by general topic, in case you missed them.
Thanks for reading and see you in the new year!
Research in fiction writing
It’s significant that popular books on creative writing don’t talk about research
Research is a process, writing is a craft (except when it’s a process)
The true as the enemy of the good: Creative license and the ethical use of information
Research in fiction writing: What I learned from Five Things posts on Terrible Minds
Why I want to learn about the role of research in fiction writing
What I learned about creative research at the Writer’s Digest Conference
Research as a subject of study
Information literacy, teaching, and librarianship
In defense of “finding and evaluating information”
The annotated bibliography as establishing shot Part 1 | Part 2
The role of excitement in teaching
Information literacy skills: Wherefore art thou?
Neil Gaiman’s famous quote about libraries: A critique
That time I participated in a Banned Books Read-Out and what I learned
Information literacy and identity negotiations
Libraries, information literacy, and pop culture
Libraries in pop culture: The Station Agent
Now that I’m officially on sabbatical, I’ve been doing a lot more reading than usual. Rather than devote an entire post to reflections on each of these items, I thought I’d share some thoughts on them in smaller, bite-sized pieces.
Today I’m taking a quick look at a news story about a Hollywood research library, a podcast about the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case, and doing some follow-up on Hannibal and Mr. Robot.
Note: The following post contains spoilers for the Morally Indefensible podcast, which is a companion podcast to the docuseries A Wilderness of Error, which is based on a book of the same name by Errol Morris (long way of saying: assume spoilers for all three). There are also spoilers for Hannibal and Mr. Robot. And I guess the British TV series Vicious.
After reading 10 popular books on creative writing in search of information on the role of research, I’ve now shifted my focus to a set of more “academic” books that are specifically about fiction writing. I say “academic” because, of all of the books on a very long list of recommended creative writing books that I found, these are the ones that are a) about fiction writing specifically and b) owned by the libraries at 20 institutions with highly respected creative writing programs at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
Today I’m taking a look at Negotiating with the Dead by Margaret Atwood.
After reading 10 popular books on creative writing in search of information on the role of research, I’ve now shifted my focus to a set of more “academic” books that are specifically about fiction writing. I say “academic” because, of all of the books on a very long list of recommended creative writing books that I found, these are the ones that are a) about fiction writing specifically and b) owned by the libraries at 20 institutions with highly respected creative writing programs at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
Today, I’m taking a look at The Art of Subtext by Charles Baxter.
Now that I’m officially on sabbatical for the fall, I’ve been doing a lot more reading than usual. Rather than devote an entire post to reflections on each of these items, I thought I’d share some thoughts on them in smaller, bite-sized pieces.
This post includes spoilers for Game of Thrones, The 100, and The Haunting of Bly Manor.
After reading 10 popular books on creative writing in search of information on the role of research, I’ve now shifted my focus to a set of more “academic” books that are specifically about fiction writing. I say “academic” because, of all of the books on a very long list of recommended creative writing books that I found, these are the ones that are a) about fiction writing specifically and b) owned by the libraries at 20 institutions with highly respected creative writing programs at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
Today, I’m taking a look at About Writing by Samuel R. Delany
So earlier this month, I attended my very first Writer’s Digest Annual/Novel Writing Conference, which happened also to be my first non-library conference and my first virtual conference. Overall, it was a great experience! I focused my time mostly on craft-related talks for reasons explained below but there were also quite a few on the publishing business and more self-help related topics that I’m hoping to catch up on via archived recordings. Definitely worth the time and something I would probably attend again, either virtually or in-person.
Though I’ve been aware of Writer’s Digest as a publication for quite some time, I don’t think I ever knew they had their own conference. Instead, I stumbled on the information about it while searching their website this past summer as part of my project to read through 10 years’ worth of their author interviews in search of information about the role of research in fiction writing. I thought attending the conference might be a good opportunity to learn more about my chosen topic, especially when I saw that there was going to be a presentation by Susan Meissner specifically about research and historical fiction.
Turns out the conference was one of the best opportunities I’ve had yet to learn more about creative research, both in a passive and active sense. I was surprised how much the topic came up even in craft talks that were not focused on research. When it didn’t come up on its own, I was able to get in a few questions as part of the Q&A that the presenters were then kind enough to answer. I’m also hoping to follow up with a few authors and presenters who said that they were open to being contacted after the conference.
Here’s some of what I learned:
