February 2012
32 posts
“None of us were real copywriters. I don’t think I got a single piece of copy...”
– Author Peter Carey on working in advertising. (via nextness)
“For me, finance is intimidating. When the chalkboard starts to look like...”
– Can we please have a moratorium on beautiful women saying “math is hard”? I simply can’t imagine someone like Ashton Kutcher saying something like this. Never mind the fact that it’s horrible from a role-model perspective, it’s just plain annoying.
What Tyra Banks Learned at Harvard - Businessweek
...
On something that I don't often write about
Writing in detail about my thoughts on abortion is something that I don’t often do. This may be the legacy of my brief tenure on my university debating team, where I was instructed by the senior debaters that resolutions related to abortion should never be tabled, because the debates are unwinnable. Or maybe it’s because I know that many people who I care about may have different views...
Musings of an Inappropriate Woman: Guest post: Why... →
rachelhills:
There’s more to journalism than the Fairfax newspapers, women’s glossies, unpaid web content and The New Yorker… although you might not know it from the way I write here. Fortunately, freelance journalist Mitchell Jordan is here to fill you in on a whole world of (paid!) publishing…
I loved this post on writing for trade magazines, in part because it reminds me of the heady...
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“Consider this: A couple months ago, Scott, a firefighter and dad from Georgia,...”
– Amazing campaigning email from Team Obama. There’s something so American about this offering of a fry being included as a key detail.
Also, I can’t help but wonder: did he pick up the fry and hand it to him (unsanitary, eek!)? Gesture towards the dish? Or proffer it, glistening with oil...
“Paper Moon Diner raises a chicken-egg question. Which came first? Was it a diner...”
– The London Review of Breakfasts
On Scottishness
At 11 I wanted very much to go to Christian summer camp. My friend Kylah and our friend Kelly were both going, and Kylah gave me the brochure one sunny Saturday afternoon in May when we were riding bikes around the neighbourhood. The kids in the Christian summer camp brochure looked like they were having even more fun than we were on our bikes: they were smiling in groups with their arms around...
The Erotic Removal of Long Underwear →
A new short story, for Kindle, as part of a collection curated by my friend Andy. I hope you enjoy it!
WatchSadly I can’t watch this in the UK, but here’s Jon Stewart making fun of the article about Lauren’s research. FAMOUS.
2 tags
On when Valentine's Day is good
My best Valentine’s Day was my first one in London: my then-boyfriend and I had made no particular plans, so we went to a generic and cheap Italian restaurant for dinner, on Lamb’s Conduit Street. No one else was there, at all — a bad sign for a restaurant on any Saturday night, but this was Valentine’s Day AND a Saturday night.
This is a bad sign, I leaned in and whispered to...
“Valentine’s Day is a perfect time to reject the idea that the ideal man is...”
– Marriage Suits Educated Women - NYTimes.com
Interesting!
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On two dinners in one night
The gluttony is not straight up, but rather a side-effect of very good intention, of wishing to fulfill someone’s desire for companionship as they enjoy an evening meal despite the fact that you’ve already had one.
It’s not like it happens all the time. Maybe five times a decade. Each time it does, it comes as a surprise, an unpleasant one: I always forget that I am the kind of...
“[A]ll parties agree that Proposition 8 had one effect only. It stripped same sex...”
– Judge Reinhardt, finding Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional.
Fist pumps at my desk, you guys. Read the whole opinion here.
(via fullcredit)
OK, I feel a little better about America now.
“The courts will be the next battleground for the fight over whether the Obama...”
– Read more.
This is crazy. CRAZY. Next time someone asks me why I don’t choose to live in America, when it’s so exciting there, I think I will show them this.
Anonymous asked: How would you describe your writing style?
On when people call something to read 'a read'
I don’t know, it just really annoys me.
“Amanda tried writing a card or something. She wrote that she and her fiancé had...”
– Allegra Goodman: “La Vita Nuova” : The New Yorker
Hits the ‘Lorrie Moore’ side of spurned-romance writing.
1 tag
On my best (greatest) skirt
Today I am wearing my best skirt! When I say ‘best’, I don’t mean in the Sunday kind of way, but rather the greatest sort of best. This skirt is the greatest because I bought it seven years ago with some of the first money I ever earned from doing writing.
The money was paid to me by a couple of dodgy publishers (they were an actual couple, married, and also dodgy publishers) who employed me, via...
January 2012
26 posts
1 tag
On winking
It’s a Tuesday night, so Brie and I are eating pho and discussing romance: in particular, my aversion to online dating.
You know, says Brie. You don’t have to meet men through online dating. You could go crazy and meet them in real life.
I could, I say. It’s true. I could! But I can’t wink. And I think that winking is a very helpful way of communicating interest in the...
“The technology I like is the American paperback edition of Freedom. I can spill...”
– (via)
Dear Jonathan Franzen: I’m not that in to ebooks either. I own neither a Kindle nor an iPad and neither is on my to-buy list). I like to sniff at the glue of a paperback as much as the next person.
But you went wrong when you claimed that physical books were the domain of...
Anonymous asked: What do you think of the Costa Books Award list this year?
Anonymous asked: Who is your favourite fictional character?
On romantic advice
It’s been a while since I’ve had romantic advice from a cab driver, I think. But then, it’s a while since I’ve been taking cabs on my own late at night. Sure sign, I suppose, of a lady who needs romantic advice. From a cab driver.
How long have you been here? says the cab driver.
Eight years! I say, because I am incapable of lying to cab drivers, of pretending that I am a...
“A man who assisted in autopsies in a big urban hospital, starting in the...”
– Sunday was the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (via motherjones)
Anonymous asked: How many books do you read a week?
“I doubt that I was in the majority among my classmates in choosing to abstain...”
–
Jean Hannah Edelstein on why good sex education is not about preaching abstinence
(via guardiancomment)
Watch80strand:
Some books do (extra) special things. In this case, Tom Bullough’s new novel, KONSTANTIN, out March 1st.
This is a rather beautiful idea.
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Anonymous asked: I've applied for Editorial Assistant jobs at magazine and book companies. For this type of job, is it usually a one-to-one interview or a group interview? Thank you!
Anonymous asked: I really hate that Paul Auster book. What are your thoughts on it?
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1 tag
On banality
I. It struck me, like never before, somewhere in the sixth or sixtieth hour of my flu-induced confinement (but probably the sixtieth, because I believe in the first throes I was delerious) that the only thing more unforgivably banal than composing, in my head, a 140-character remark about my suffering (vile suffering; in the grand scheme of possibility, gentle suffering) would be sharing the...
"Daaaaad, I can't believe you let them send me to... →
stryker:
nerdshares:
From this article: “Even though the region boasts some of the finest farmland in the world, there is a startling lack of fresh produce here.”
My mother-in-law is a vegan who lives in the woods (yes) in southern Ohio. And even though it’s an hour and a half to the nearest grocery, she and my step-FIL are still alive. People who actually cook for themselves instead of going...
