Category: Uncategorized
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How to Kill Kill Blog Writing or at Least Try
Some of you may know I am working with James on his new blog over at http://www.thepaisleyfields.com/blog/. As part of a site redesign, I suggested he create a blog. (The site redesign has yet to be launched.) James is a great writer. His life as a country musician and a recently married gay man is…
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Writing a Poem a Day and Learning to Let Go
April is National Poetry Month. Writer’s Digest is sponsoring a Poem A Day Challenge, and I decided to participate. I have wanted to do the challenge in the past, but worried I wouldn’t be able to commit the time. But lately, I have carved out more time for writing. I joined a new writing group…
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Rapists Cause Rape and the Power of Words
“Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi… spoke powerfully of India’s horrendous rape problem. ‘I want to ask every parent that you have a daughter of 10 or 12 years age, you are always on the alert, every now and then you keep on asking where are you going, when would you come back… Parents ask their daughters hundreds…
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Courtney Love and bad feminism
I watched The Punk Singer this weekend. Though I was familiar with Bikini Kill before I watched the documentary, I can’t say I was too knowledgeable about Kathleen Hana’s life. If you know me well, you know I adore Courtney Love. I realize there is much that is unlikable about Love. She was a junkie,…
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Creativity, Community, and Some Other Hippie Mumbo Jumbo
“So are faced with a terrific, inspiring challenge: finding ways to use technology to build connection and community even as the old world disintegrates around us.” This is a line from an article on Salon about the music industry. The link is here: http://goo.gl/HLxDDi. I found this line particularly compelling because it can be applied…
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Williamsburg is not just a town in Iowa.
I am horrible at titling things. Tonight’s poem received this shiny corvette of a title. I obviously lifted it from the body of the poem. I learned that idea from a professor or something. And it encapsulates the feeling in the poem. Which is what! a title! should do! I was also told I am allotted three exclamation marks a year…
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Good writing, Man Repelling, & Being Uncool
http://www.manrepeller.com/2014/04/mary-kate-and-ashley-olsen.html This article is a great, devastatingly descriptive piece, and it is about fashion. So it combines two of my loves- fashion and good writing. The article is also rather amusing. It takes two fashion icons, Mary Kate and Ashley, (because let’s be honest they are) and it both delights in and accurately skewers their…
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Measuring time in teaspoons & Quailman.
Sometimes, I don’t respond to email. I ignore the blog. I miss texts. I don’t Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. I turn the phone off. Sometimes, I need to drop out. I need to hear the silence rattle around my head. I need to let the ideas shoot legs, then brains, and then emerge like,…
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Learning Not to Shut Up
I follow Roxane Gay on Twitter and Tumblr. I read her blog and articles on Salon.com. She says some incredibly insightful things about politics, race, and gender. I also enjoy her fiction. It is strange and beautiful. Below is an excerpt from a Tumblr post of hers. It is a longer version of her answer…
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How to write every day, or at least kind of.
I came across this article on Salon.com, “Nicholson Baker’s best advice: Writers must write every day.” That a writer should write every day is not new advice. I came up with Writing Wednesday to force myself to write more often. But every day just seems really intimidating. In the article, Baker admits that sometimes he counts…
Pam Dewey Writer 