by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Mar 11, 2011 | catching moments, details, life, truth |
Dear Los Angeles Times, Regarding your headlines* today on the National Book Critics Circle Awards, the photo you posted is not Jennifer Egan. In addition, I would also like to point out that you mention the name of Mr. Franzen’s novel, the one that didn’t...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Mar 8, 2011 | accumulation, first novels, mfa, place, reading |
Roswell, Georgia, a small city rich in history on the north side of Atlanta, chose Robin Oliveira’s first novel, My Name is Mary Sutter, as their Sixth Annual Roswell Reads Selection. At a reception for Robin Friday night, which included delicious gluten-free...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Mar 1, 2011 | How We Spend Our Days |
Annie Dillard wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” On the first of each month, Catching Days hosts a guest writer in the series, “How We Spend Our Days.” Today, please welcome writer Summer Wood: This morning, February 15, what I write...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Feb 27, 2011 | craft of writing, essays, mfa |
I was just going through a pile of papers that was teetering precariously and found a page I had torn out from “The Care and Feeding of the Work in Progress” by Catherine M. Wallace (Writer’s Chronicle, Mar/Apr 2008). Writing workshops generally...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Feb 24, 2011 | craft of writing, essays, memory, poetry, stories |
One I’d heard of before. Three I hadn’t. Some were free at AWP; some were not. In each one, I found something that made me glad I’d lugged it home–either connecting with the words of writers I didn’t know or finding new poems and stories...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Feb 21, 2011 | obsession |
Pine trees that are all wiry and taller than the other trees so they stick out, different textures coming together, abandoned things and places, stairs and thresholds, rainy days and fog, sunrises and sunsets, doors and windows, trains and tracks, lines of laundry,...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Feb 18, 2011 | poetry, reviews |
The Contrary Blog–the blog of unpopular discontent–is up and running. Click over and take a look at this new voice on the internet, the brainchild of Jeff McMahon, Contrary’s Editor. It’s a multi-author blog, anchored by David Alm. Its focus is...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Feb 15, 2011 | novels, reviews |
What a great name for a little boy. And for the title of Summer Wood’s second novel, out today from Bloomsbury [no spoilers]. Chapter One begins with these two sentences: It was the middle of the afternoon, January 1969, and a half-hearted rain dampened San...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Feb 12, 2011 | details, obsession, shapes |
In the past week, several different readers have commented that either they didn’t know there was a list of all the writers in the How We Spend Our Days series or that they didn’t know what I was talking about when I said an article was mentioned on the...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Feb 8, 2011 | catching moments, craft of writing, mfa, Pam Houston, the day |
Get ready for some name-dropping rock star highlights from awp 2011 in Washington DC: running into Josh Ritter in the bar Wednesday night…ricotta pancakes with sour cherries Thursday morning…sitting behind Jennifer Egan on Saturday and hearing her read...
