School Opening

School will reopen tomorrow Thursday 16 June. Please bring a bottle of boiled drinking water.
See you all there!

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Transparency, Barthelme and Lahiri

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I've been reading Jhumpa Lahiri's short story collection "Unaccustomed Earth" recently, along with "Donald Barthelme" (by Lois Gordon) and "Reading Network Fiction" by David Ciccoricco. First I'll mention some general language features, then I'll compare the writers. In some aspects they're opposites though I like them both. Language Knowledge of, and skill with, words isn't a sufficient condition for understanding the world. In itself it's not even a necessary condition. We learn by doing, by writing. Learning leads to new instruments, new worlds. The Word and World inform each other. For writers in particular, words are not passive mediators. The Self isn't a separate layer either. It needs to be added into the mix. The " World -> Self (Author) -> Word " pipeline is misleading. There are eddies and backflows. Authors write in order to understand. The Reader needs to be added into the mix. The ...
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Breaking into print

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Contents What's the point? Inhibitions and how to overcome them Planning Sending off - Where and How (and electronic submission ) Keeping records Rejection Acceptance Marketing No Reply Shortcuts Conclusions References So, you have some poems, or short stories or maybe even a novel. You all know about the Writers and Artists Yearbook, you've all seen stories and articles that you could have written yourselves, so why don't you send things off? Today we'll try to identify what's holding you back. I'll talk first about general issues, then deal with the details about sending off, then what to do after. I'm not going to deal with blockbusters - I'm going to assume you're happy to start at the shallow end. If it all sounds like too much work, don't worry - I'll offer some shortcuts at the end. What's the point? I suppose firstly we should look at the incentives to sending things away. Money - Unless you regularly write articles, you won...
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The Legacy of Form

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