Category Archives: design
A novel on memory, story & alibi
A colleague here at Otterbein University, Noam Shpancer, a psychologist, has just hit the big time at age fifty-one with his first novel, The Good Psychologist. Early reviews are positive to raves: Kirkus gave it a starred notice, Alan Cheuse … Continue reading
Filed under audience, braids, threads, design, editing, fiction, memoir, NOTED, REVIEW, working method
Lessons from writing my memoir . . .
Five years ago I began writing a memoir about my experiences farming in Appalachian Ohio. My official start was September 1, as I recall, but I was gearing up at this time of year, in late August, when the common … Continue reading
Filed under braids, threads, design, Dillard—Saint Annie, discovery, editing, film/photography, flow, memoir, MY LIFE, scene, structure, syntax, working method
Dinty’s Google Maps essay
Not especially funny or witty myself, perhaps that’s why I admire those who are: I must have opened my blog a half dozen times today to read the first sentence by Anthony Lane in the post below this. Then tonight … Continue reading
Filed under design, essay-narrative, experimental, humor, Lane—Prince Anthony, memoir, NOTED
Finding a font for our words
The New Yorker online recently excerpted a passage from Jonathan Lethem’s new novel Chronic City concerning a man who believes his mind to be controlled by the magazine’s font. This mention allowed The New Yorker to reveal: “Fiction editor Deborah … Continue reading
Filed under aesthetics, design, working method
Death to dingbats!
Reading an elegant memoir this week, I became annoyed with the dingbats the publisher inserted in the author’s line breaks, the white spaces he used as transitions between sections in chapters. A dingbat, in this case a set of three … Continue reading
Filed under aesthetics, design, editing, essay-lyric, journalism, structure
That sweet white space
The line break, an extra return after a paragraph that adds white space to a text, has practical and dramatic uses I was slow to understand. I was proud of my verbal transitions, and physical ones seemed like cheating. It … Continue reading
Filed under design, essay-lyric, fiction, journalism, structure, teaching, technique
