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: ogival… It took me many weeks to finish the novel Safekeeping by Jessamyn Hope. Although others — including the Boston Globe — described it as “luminous, irreverent, and ambitious,” I […]
What does the word “ogival” mean? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 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 a New York Times article about Internet-based hyperbole… My least favourite error is when someone says or writes, “I literally died.”
OMG! Internet-based hyperbole Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute Have you ever wondered where to put only, the adverb? There’s a rule for that! This week I was working on a website for a client. Things were going relatively smoothly until the boss took a phrase I’d written and moved around the word “only.” To protect confidentiality I can’t
Where to put only… Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of metaphors and similes from Susan Jane Gilman… The non-fiction memoir, Undress Me In the Temple of Heaven, by Susan Jane Gilman, was recommended to me by an email book list. It
The figurative language of Susan Jane Gilman… Read More »
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: auto-da-fé… In the Nov. 16/15 New Yorker I read an interesting article about Vera Nabokov, headlined “Silent Partner” by Judith Thurman. The wife of Vladimir Nabokov — who was
What is an auto-da-fe? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 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 a Guardian article about a 26% decline in younger children using the library… When my children were tikes, I used to take them to a “library day”
Why we should worry about a decline in younger children using the library Read More »
Reading time: Less than 2 minutes It shouldn’t surprise anyone that there are many problems at UBC. It’s a large school with more than 59,000 students. But how does the university handle these problems? Aye, there’s the rub… What exactly is going on at my alma mater, and the place my three adult children are now
UBC faces a litany of problems, poorly Read More »
Reading time: Less than 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 Gillian Flynn… I don’t typically read mysteries or thrillers (call my habit a character flaw if you like) but I read two while travelling in
The figurative language of Gillian Flynn…. Read More »
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: to harry. The novel All The Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, is one of the finest books I’ve read in years. Set during the time of the Second World War, the
What does “to harry” mean? Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Whenever I read, I copy my favourite lines and passages into my gigantic collection of quotes about writing. Here are some that have spoken to me at various phases of my writing life. 1) Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. ~Margaret Atwood I particularly like the way Atwood suggests
Do you agree with these quotes about writing? Read More »
