Reading time: Less than 2 minutes You’ve undoubtedly heard the expression ‘tempest in a teapot.’ Today I write about a crisis in a coffee cup. I’d missed the whole brouhaha over Starbucks’ ill-advised scheme to start a public discussion about race. Perhaps that’s because I’m Canadian and the program didn’t exist here. Or maybe it’s because I […]
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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 simile from Sebastian Faulks… In his interesting (albeit uneven) collection of stories and novellas, titled A Possible Life, Sebastian Faulks offers some particularly delicious figurative language. I use the word “delicious” deliberately
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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: sprezzatura… Many attribute God-like credentials to American writer John McPhee and hold his writing in awe. I do not. In fact, I find some of it a bit hard to
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Reading time: Just over 3 minutes You may hate technology or love it but at least be aware of how the Internet is improving writing… I graduated from high school 40 years ago this June. (Yikes! Time doesn’t just fly. It’s rocket-propelled.) Back in this mesolithic era, teachers moaned about… the loss of our attention,
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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 an article written by Maria Popova…. I’m always impressed by the depth and sophistication that writer Maria Popova (pictured above) devotes
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Reading time: Less than 2 minutes Most of the news relating to Angelina Jolie and her recent surgery announcement focus, as they should, on Jolie’s health and bravery. But I think there’s another part to the story as well… A deep, murky well of cancer runs through my family. Both my grandmothers, who died well before
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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 metaphor from Hannah Kent…. The fine book Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (pictured above) is being turned into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence. I hope this will bring the Icelandic historical novel the
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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: hurdy gurdy. Of course, I know what a hurdy-gurdy is. It’s a stringed instrument (pictured above) that produces sound by a crank-turned wheel rubbing against strings. You can
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Reading time: Just over 3 minutes In the 25 years I spent as a wage slave (an employee, rather than a contractor) I had exactly ONE good supervisor. But I learned plenty about how to write for a bad boss…. I was standing in the middle of the newsroom — an open-area office with about 115 people —
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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 an article written by Melinda Osteen… A headline like How To Think and Write Creatively was bound to get my attention. And
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