Reading time: About 2 minutes In his life as a journalist, James Fitzgerald has relatively recently turned to book writing and his 2010 memoir shows a keen eye and ear for figurative language… The first book of journalist James Fitzgerald was, Old Boys: the Powerful Legacy of Upper Canada College — a controversial 1994 study […]
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: chifferobe… I read a number of positive reviews of the novel An American Marriage by Tayari Jones before it scampered to fame as an Oprah Book Club
What’s a ‘chifferobe’? Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Do you find yourself ignoring the writing you need to be doing? Or avoiding thinking about what went wrong in the past? You may be suffering from recency bias…. Even if you don’t know it by name, I’ll bet you’ve experienced recency bias. That’s the formal name for the human
Is recency bias harming your writing? Read More »
Reading time: About 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help other writers. Today I discuss how to write about difficult topics…. My video editor emailed me a few moments ago. She was delayed with some work because
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Reading time: Just over 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of spectacular metaphors from British journalist Anthony Lane…. Anthony Lane is a British journalist, who is currently a film critic for The New Yorker magazine. After all the recent
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: obdurate… I never thought I’d describe a novel about Alzheimer’s Disease as “sprightly” but that cheerful adjective certainly applies to Goodbye, Vitamin: A Novel by Rachel Khong. Named a
What does ‘obdurate’ mean? Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes If you can’t answer the question, “what is bike shedding,” you may be doing it yourself — to your own disadvantage as a writer… My son phoned me recently to talk about… bike shedding. When he used the word, I was certain I must have misunderstood. He’s a keen cyclist,
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Reading time: About 1 minute Did you ever think that an Olympian can teach writers anything? Perhaps surprisingly, yes. Here’s a great message from champion skater Nathan Chen… My husband has had his head buried in his cellphone, over the last few weeks, watching the Olympics. (He found the women’s hockey game to be particularly
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Reading time: Just over 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of similes and metaphors from Jesmyn Ward…. I’m not usually drawn to books best described as “bleak.” I usually prefer to live on the sunny side of the street.
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: marmorated… I have little interest in insects but a March 12/18 New Yorker article on stinkbugs (one is pictured above) captured my attention recently. Headlined, “When Twenty-Six Thousand
What does ‘marmorated’ mean? Read More »
