Reading time: Less than one 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: saturnine… I chose to read John Lahr’s profile of the actress Viola Davis (pictured above) — in the Dec. 19 & 26/16 New […]
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SeReading time: Just over 3 minutes If you were educated following Western norms, your many years of schooling may have made you wonderfully analytic but otherwise unoriginal or uninspired. Here’s how to improve your creativity… Are you already a creative person? Or are you the kind of writer who desperately wants
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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 a Steve McCurry book of photographs of people reading….. When I was eight-years-old I used to sit
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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 series of metaphors from Paul Theroux… I have not read a great deal of Paul Theroux. When younger, I devoured his very funny non-fiction book The Kingdom By
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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: flibbertigibbet… Here is a novel about four college classmates — an artist, an architect, a lawyer and an actor —who move to New York and support
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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 about grammar barbarians written by Jay Thorwaldsen… I was lucky enough to grow up
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute Being prepared is better than being scared when it comes to responding to the media… I was leading a workshop recently, on the topic of how to respond to the media, when I had a question I really hadn’t expected. “Is it an obligation
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Reading time: Less than 2 minutes 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 Colson Whitehead… I had heard many laudatory reviews of the novel The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. A National Book Award Winner and a #1 New York
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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: scabrous I finished the novel Hot Milk by Deborah Levy (pictured above) last week and can’t say I much liked it. Despite glowing reviews
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute Are you interested in becoming a better presenter? Here’s one unusual tip: Leave more ‘holes’ in your speeches… I do a lot of presentations — some in person, the others online. (The online ones are always much harder!) And here is something I’ve always
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