I have to admit that, reading Chris’s post from yesterday about “crowdsourcing” literature, my initial reaction was: UGH. What could possibly be worse than a publishing industry dictated entirely by the majority of book-buyers? We’d end up reading two hundred different Da Vinci Codes each year, and poor Dave Eggers would be pretty much out [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Andrew'
On Literature By Committee
October 28th, 2009 1 Comment
Tags: Andrew · books · getting published · nonfiction · publishing industry
WTF, Stockholm?
October 16th, 2009 3 Comments
You probably all know Stockholm for its eponymous psychological syndrome, in which hostages begin to show a chilling loyalty to their captors. Perhaps, to a lesser extent, you also know Stockholm as the cultural and economic capital of Sweden. But what I bet you didn’t know is that, in addition to all that, Stockholm is [...]
On Pooh-Poohing
October 7th, 2009 No Comments
Way back in January I expressed great excitement at the arrival of a brand new, officially authorized Winnie the Pooh installment, and promised to gush and/or rant about it here on Vernacular as soon as I was able.
Well, since Return to the Hundred Acre Wood (by David Benidictus “in the tradition of A. A. Milne”) [...]
Tags: Andrew · Book Reviews · fiction · literary taste
On Beasts
September 30th, 2009 No Comments
There was an article in the New York Times this week about how The Daily Beast (of Emerson is the most dangerous school in America fame) is planning to launch their own imprint with Perseus in December, called, appropriately enough, Beast Books.
The Times explains:
On a typical publishing schedule, a writer may take a year or [...]
Tags: Andrew · books · freelancing · getting published · publishing industry · This Week in Publishing
Professor Profile: Robert Dulgarian
September 11th, 2009 No Comments
My dirty little secret as an Emerson grad student is that once, many years ago, before I’d cultivated the maturity and thoughtfulness with which I am now clearly brimming… I was an Emerson undergrad. Only for two years, and then I transferred out to finish my BA elsewhere, and I swear I never smoked a [...]
Tags: Andrew · Emerson College WLP Department · emerson courses · emerson professors
On Going Further Afield
September 2nd, 2009 1 Comment
This week we’re supposed to be sharing our secrets about the best things to do/places to go in Boston. I’m going to abstain, for two reasons:
1. I don’t want my favourite haunts getting overrun with any more people until I’ve met and brutally evaluated them in person.
2. Sometimes the best thing to do in Boston [...]
Tags: Andrew · Boston Confidential
On Soaps
August 12th, 2009 No Comments
My preference when it comes to prose is always precision and elegance: I find nothing less forgivable than sloppily written descriptions, cliché dialogue, hastily fleshed-out characters, and so forth. Indeed, as far as I’m concerned, any story, no matter how interesting, is made pretty much irredeemable by poor quality writing. (”His corded, muscular arms.” Yeesh. [...]
Tags: Andrew · big screen/small screen week · language usage · literary taste · Neighbours
On Outlets
July 29th, 2009 No Comments
Patrick’s post about alternative creative outlets the other day inspired me to brush off my old hobbyhorse and extol the virtues of improvisation.
Of course, I’m sure you’ve all seen those godawful ads that Improv Asylum has had on the T for the past several decades, and I don’t doubt that improv is indeed very useful [...]
Tags: Andrew · writers' habits
On Comfort
July 15th, 2009 4 Comments
For Christmas last year I was given a subscription to Prospect, a magazine whose guiding principle each issue seems to be to make itself even more British than it was the previous month. As a result its articles, though undeniably thoughtful, are often stultifyingly intellectual and snobbish in a way that only British people of [...]
Tags: Andrew · British intellectuals · getting published · literary magazines · literary taste · Prospect · vicious circles
On Travel
July 3rd, 2009 2 Comments
So Kim has asked us this week to write about Travel, somehow, seeing as a lot of people, you know, travel in July. And I’ve been at a bit of a loss because, though I travel a lot, I don’t really think of it as all that literary an endeavour — my favourite piece of [...]
Tags: Andrew · writers' habits · writing process