Posts tagged as:

Poetry

MAD’s Monday Muse: Don’t Hold Back

by Mary Ann on August 17, 2009

I saw the Julie & Julia movie yesterday. Julia Child’s fearlessness, her joyful energy and passion, drove her to success. Author Annie Dillard doesn’t hold back either. Isn’t interesting how often good writing advice makes good life advice, too?
“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play [...]

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A Prairie Home Companion: The Poetry Compilation Show

by Mary Ann on August 16, 2009

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MAD’s Monday Muse: Stamina

by Mary Ann on August 9, 2009

I can play with sentences for hours and hours.
“There’s no reason you should write any novel quickly. There’s no reason you shouldn’t, as a writer, not be aware of the necessity to revise yourself constantly. More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn’t [...]

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MAD’s Monday Muse: Lighthearted

by Mary Ann on August 3, 2009

This year I resolved to be more lighthearted (not to be confused with less diligent or less thoughtful). It has been freeing and productive to take my writing (and my self) less seriously.
“Yes, writing can be complicated, exhausting, isolating, abstracting, boring, dulling, briefly exhilarating; it can be made to be grueling and demoralizing. And occasionally [...]

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MAD’s Monday Muse: Embrace Your Wanderlust

by Mary Ann on July 20, 2009

The road to a complete written piece is rarely smooth and straight from beginning to end. It’s bumpy; there are detours and dead ends; and your windshield is more likely than not to get muddy. Instead of freaking out when the end is not in sight, how about enjoying the ramble? Take side trips and [...]

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MAD’s Monday Muse: Shut Up & Write

by Mary Ann on July 13, 2009

We love to write. We want to write. We need to write. We long to write. And yet, we find all sorts of ways to avoid doing this thing we love, want, need, and long to do. One way we avoid writing is by gathering with other writers to do writer-like things.
And while it’s [...]

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Q: What if poets and novelists wrote the news?

by Mary Ann on July 4, 2009

A. You’d  get a Wall Street Report like this:
“Everything’s okay. Everything’s like usual. Yesterday trading ended. Everything’s okay. The economists went to their homes, the laundry is drying on the lines, dinners are waiting in place.”
Honestly, what else do we really need to know?
For one day, Haaretz editor-in-chief Dov Alfon sent most of [...]

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MAD’s Monday Muse

by Mary Ann on June 29, 2009

In last week’s Muse there I quoted a writer writing about a fictional writer. Here’s a quotation in the same vein from another favorite book:
“She was touched by his delicacy. Maybe this is what an artist is, she thought. It reminded her of something she’d once read, about how an artist doesn’t really need a [...]

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Brian Turner, Kerouac Writer in Residence

by Mary Ann on June 28, 2009

Here’s Brian Turner, the poet we in the Orlando area are fortunate to have in residence at Kerouac House this quarter.  And we feel extra fortunate to be able to offer you an opportunity to work with him.

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MAD’s Monday Muse

by Mary Ann on June 22, 2009

I love Lorrie Moore’s writing. She can put me in the space where funny and sad overlap, and that’s a place I like to be in. [read more]

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MAD’s Monday Muse

by Mary Ann on April 27, 2009

The right time and place to write? Let’s face it. It doesn’t exist for most of us. But like Toni Morrison, we can make small spaces and write in the middle of things. [Read on...]

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