THE ELECTRONIC WRITE STUFF
· Writing News for the Sunshine State & the Solar System
· www.northfloridawriters.org * May 2011
· Editor: Howard Denson
===========================
In This Issue: NFW to Critique at May Meeting at Willowbranch Congratulations Go to Four Shantyboat Writers, Says Harlin Laura Duksta Kicks Off Book Festival Historic Preservation Commission Honors Fletcher and “Remembering Jax” Amelia Island Book Festival Seeks Authors for 2012 The Wrong Stuff Stuff from Hither and Yon Stuff from a Writer's Quill –
Robert Graves Meetings of NFW and Other Groups Useful Links The Write Staff Membership Form Writers Born This Month * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NFW TO CRITIQUE
AT MAY 14 MEETING AT WILLOWBRANCH The North Florida Writers will critique manuscripts at the Saturday, May 14, meeting at Willowbranch library. President
Stewart Neal said the meeting will start at 2 p.m. The
critique process has people other than the author of respective works
read aloud the submissions (up to 10 double-spaced
pages of prose, and reasonable amounts of poetry or lyrics). Authors
may not defend their work, but they should listen to the words and
rhythms of their creations. This will be the group’s third meeting at Willowbranch. Long-time residents have probably driven past this library
at 2875 Park St., Jax 32205, but, if you are unfamiliar with the Riverside part of town, you may wish to go to
http://jpl.coj.net/lib/ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * CONGRATULATIONS GO TO FOUR SHANTYBOAT WRITERS, SAYS HARLIN
The
director of the Shantyboat Writers Groups Lynn Skapyak Harlin says some
gold stars are in order for several aspiring writers. Nancy Purcell's
essay
"On Not Writing"
is in this month's
edition of “Talking Writing.” In it she says: "Writing gives breath to my feelings and legs to my
memories. It releases what has been held captive in my mind and lets it loose on the page."
Ms. Harlin also congratulates these writers who all have poems in this issue of
WritingRaw Poetry: This is the second poem for Tonn Pastore, the third poem for Carolee Bertisch, and the first for Rose Grier. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * LAURA DUKSTA KICKS OFF BOOK FESTIVAL Bestselling children's author Laura Duksta will kick off the Spring Book Festival at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 5, at Neptune
Beach’s The Book Mark (220 First St., Neptune Beach 32266). Duksta is the author of "I Love You More." Like this earlier book, "You
are a Gift to the World" is a "flip book" format, meaning it
starts from either side and can be read to the middle and then flipped
for another complete story.
Owner Rona Brinlee says Duksta reminds us of the many ways that life itself is a continuous unwrapping of magical moments.
When you flip the book over, it shows how many of the biggest gifts are provided to us by the very planet we call home.
Laura Duksta believes that when people know they are loved, anything is possible. Laura lost all her hair to a condition
called Alopecia Areata at the age of eleven. It took her many years to learn to love herself and allow others to love her. For more information, call the bookstore at 904-241-9026 or e-mail it at
bkmark@bellsouth.net. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION HONORS FLETCHER AND “REMEMBERING JAX” Dorothy K. Fletcher, a columnist featured monthly in “The Mandarin Sun,” a section of “The Florida
Times-Union,” will be honored by the Jacksonville Historic Preservation Commission on May 5.
Along with several others, she will be honored at a ceremony at the Jacksonville Main Library Auditorium. Her award
is for her book “Remembering Jacksonville: By the Wayside” (History Press) and for her column “By the Wayside.”
Ms. Fletcher, who retired in 2007 after 35 years teaching English in the public school system, fills her retirement
by writing, traveling, and spending time with her family. For more about her, go to
http://www.dorothykfletcher. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * FESTIVAL SEEKS AUTHORS FOR 2012 If
you want to be an author, editor, or agent speaking at the 2012 Amelia
Island Book Festival, you will need to send in your submission by June
30. Next year’s
Festival will be Feb. 17-18. For more information, go to the AIBF website at
www.ameliaislandbookfestival. Check the website for AIBF’s new office location.
In addition, AIBF is looking for some office equipment if you have some to donate. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * THE
WRONG STUFF – FORENSIC GRAMMAR The essays from George Washington through Kennedy that appear online were written by Frank Freidel, a Harvard University scholar
and biographer of Franklin Delano Roosevelt who died in 1993. W.S.
SAYS: For a couple of seconds, the reader is asking, “Is he saying that
FDR died in 1993? No way.” Two or three
solutions suggest themselves, but the simplest is to put a period after
“Roosevelt” and have a separate sentence saying “Freidel died in 1993.” ** In-wheel motor technology has also been hampered by the fact that the additional “unsprung weight” of the motor, which can’t be
supported by a car’s standard suspension system, tends to have an adverse affect on road handling. W.S.
SAYS: This problem can be tricky. The weight of the motor AFFECTS road
handling, but it has an adverse EFFECT.
Simple rule: About 90-95 percent of the time, you will want “effect” if
it’s a noun. If you are dealing with child care, psychology, etc., you
will often use “affect” when referring to an emotional response. ** Headline for article in Reason.com: W.S. SAYS: And what else do we predict other than the future? ** Hugo Martin, “Hollywood like you’ve never seen it before” (“Los Angeles Times” syndicate): The
TMZ tour will change with each new celebrity scandal, but operators say
it may include such spots as the nightclub
where “Seinfeld’s” Michael Richards went on a racially tinged rant, the
high-end department store were actress Winona Ryder was caught
shoplifting and the courthouse where Lindsay Lohan is being prosecuted
on a grand theft charge. W.S. SAYS: The biggest problem is that the sentence contains 57 words, a dangerous length since some obvious problem
might be hiding in the forest of words, such as “were” instead of “where.” ** Deborah Hansen, “Big Meaningless Words Dominate Education Debate” (“The Jacksonville Observer”): Let’s pretend for a minute. You know how we did when we were kids, and we hadn’t been reigned in, hadn’t been told
to act our ages yet? --and-- Of
course, we don’t write those bulleted lists or fancy sentences
ourselves. Other players of the game get that
job, so they run to their computers and find words and phrases that say
a little bit without saying much at all, like “key community
stakeholders” or “global economy” or “building consensus.” These fancy
words seem to impress lots of people, so the speechwriters
used them a lot and hope no one asks what they really mean. Because no
one is really sure. They just sound good. W.S. SAYS: In the first example, if kids are acting like a bunch of wild horses, you
rein them in. In the second example, the writer is making a valid point. She is applying the excellent argument of George Orwell
against meaningless words. Check out his “Politics and the English Language” at
http://orwell.ru/library/ Malcolm
Cowley explored some of the same territory in his later essay,
“Sociological Habit Patterns in Linguistic Transmogrification”
(www.imprs-demogr.mpg.de/ Despite
making valid points, she undercuts herself by using the word “fancy.”
The expressions are largely everyday
words constituting buzz words. A “fancy” word would probably be
“crepuscular” instead of “twilight.” Referring to “fancy” words in a
speech or essay is dangerous anyway. Twenty percent or so of the
audience may appreciate it, but another 20 percent may think
the writer or speaker is speaking down to them. Oh, and we spotted the fragment, but we’re in the giving mood today. ** Matt Dixon, “State gave away hundreds of trees to put up billboards” (“Florida Times-Union”): Each of the 105 Salter permits were for billboards in the western portion of the Panhandle. W.S. SAYS: What’s the subject of the sentence? “Each” is, and it’s singular. That means the verb should also be singular,
“was.” The sentence could have been tightened to “the 105 Salter permits were. . . .” ** Andrew O’Hehir, “Pick of the Week: The Greatest War Film Ever Made” (salon.com): You
could curate a dynamite film festival out of post-9/11 war movies, both
documentaries and narrative features, starting with Michael Tucker and
Petra Epperlein's prescient "Gunner
Palace" -- made in 2004, just as the Iraq conflict was going seriously
south -- and moving forward through "The Situation" and "Iraq in
Fragments" and "Battle for Haditha" and, of course, "The Hurt Locker"
and last year's Oscar-nominated, you-are-there documentary
"Restrepo." W.S.
SAYS: We only take three steps into this 68-word sentence before we
encounter a problem. “Curate” is an unhappy
choice, perhaps selected by an auto-correct program when the writer was
trying to type “create.” “Curate” can be a verb as in “he wishes to
curate a museum collection,” but it really doesn’t work even if the
writer deliberately chose the word. Other problem:
68 words? Did the writer take English at Whazzamatta U? ** Brett Arends, “IMF
bombshell: Age of America nears end; China’s economy will surpass the U.S. in 2016” (MoneyWatch.Com): According to the IMF forecast, whomever is elected U.S. president next year — Obama? Mitt Romney? Donald Trump? — will be the
last to preside over the world’s largest economy. W.S.
SAYS: It should be “whoever.” We have a clause acting as the subject of
the sentence. Within the clause, the subject should
be “whoever” because “who” is used in the subject (nominative) case. If
that clause is used as a direct object or object of a preposition, it
does not change: We will attack whoever is elected president; the office
will go to whoever is elected. By itself,
“whomever” would only be used if the sentence asked something like “the
U.S. will elect whomever next year?”
Rule
of thumb: When in doubt about whether to use “who” or “whom,” use
“who.” About 90 percent of readers won’t notice a misuse of
“who,” but maybe 70 percent will notice when “whom” is misused. ** Bill Kaczor, “Bright Futures scholarships to dim for many” (Associated Press): The Legislature is poised to cut the popular Bright Futures scholarship program, meaning thousands of college students and their
parents will be paying higher costs or take out loans, seek other financial aid, get jobs or maybe even go on a low-cost diet. W.S.
SAYS: We have a parallel verb problem. As a forensic grammarian, we
deduce that the writer chose to say “will
be paying” and then perhaps answered the phone. When he returned to the
sentence, perhaps he thought he had said “parents will pay.” As it is,
progressives should have been used for “take,” “seek,” “get,” and “go.”
An editor should have caught the error. ** Robert Reich, “The Wageless Recovery” (Huffington Post): The Street doesn't seem to understand that when most peoples' wages are dropping, additional dollars they spend on groceries and
at the gas pump means fewer dollars they have left to spend in the rest of the economy. W.S.
SAYS: Common error in the past couple of years: putting the apostrophe
after the “s” in “peoples’.” The word is already plural,
so “people’s” would be correct. If the sentence were about different
nationalities, as in Churchill’s “History of the English Speaking
Peoples” (means Brits, Yanks, Canadians, Aussies, etc.), then the
original usage would be correct. ** David Germain, Associated Press review of the film “Fast Five”: Any
thwack from the inevitable Diesel-Johnson slug-fest might kill an
ordinary human, but these characters basically are comic-book
figures, so they’re able to wail the innards out of each other and come
through with only a cosmetic bruise or two. W.S.
SAYS: The writer probably thought, “You whale the tar out of someone.
No, that won’t do. Whale’s a big fish, okay, a big mammal.
Ah, it must be wail.” No, you may wail if you are beaten, but that’s
not the right word. The spelling should be “whale,” which is a variant
of “wale.” And “The Oxford English Dictionary” says that word refers, in
nautical terms, to “a
plank running along the side of a wooden ship, thicker than the usual planking, and strengthening and protecting the hull,” then to “a ridge” or “horizontal band on a basket.”
It’s related to the Old English “walu,”
meaning “stripe” or “weal.” Hence, when a villainous captain hisses,
“I’ll whale the daylights out of you,” he’s referring to the stripes,
ridges, and welts the whipping will produce. Arrr! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * STUFF FROM HITHER AND YON The Days Of Yore This website interviews writers and artists “about the years they had before they had money, fame, or roadmaps to success,
and inspires you to find your own.” Among those interviewed are Alley II dance director Sylvia Waters, artist Tom Sanford, and writers and playwrights William Finnegan,
Michael Shammell, Karen Hartman, Julia Alvarez, David Shields, Noah Hawley, Ben Marcus, and others.
http://www.thedaysofyore.com/ 10 Tips on How To Write Less Badly Michael
Munger of the Duke University political science department has written a
sound article for “The Chronicle of Higher Education” on how to write
better (or at least less badly).
http://chronicle.com/article/ If you are
traveling in Europe and eastern Russia, you need to know where to sip
coffee and pastry as you try to capture the mood of what it might have
been like for Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Kafka,
and others. http://www.onlinecollege.org/ From Dr. Seuss to J.K. Rowling, writers who are now very famous endured the persistent horror of Rejection.
http://www.onlinecollege.org/ Stumbling Block For Creative Writing Masters Programs Writer’s
block can be bad enough, but aspiring writers in master’s programs in
creative writing may have a concern about the electronic
storage of their “theses.” Will e-storage keep actual publishers away? http://www.insidehighered.com/ What about The Top 40 Baaad Books? The American Book Review devoted an issue to the top 40 bad books, and, of course, you will squeal at some of the entries. Can a
bad book still be good? Are some academics just pushing English peas up their noses?
http://americanbookreview.org/
Amis on Hitchens:
'He's one of the most
terrifying rhetoricians
the world has seen'
Martin
Amis hails the peerless intelligence and rhetorical ingenuity of his
exceptional friend, , the very quotable Christopher Hitchens.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ A.C. Grayling’s Top 5 Non-Religious Books On Living a Good Life Nina Shen Rastoqi reviews
The Good Book
by British philosophy professor A.C. Grayling. She noted that he sifted
through more than a thousand historical texts, by authors ranging from
Abulfazi to Zhuxi, and wove them into a single, freestanding volume.
Highlights: Aristotle,
The Nichomachean Ethics,
c. 322 B.C.E.; Edward Gibbon, The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776-1789; John Stuart Mill,
On Liberty,
1869; Robin Lane Fox, The
Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible, 1993; Richard Dawkins,
The Greatest Show on Earth,
2009. http://www.slate.com/blogs/ In
the India Uncut Blog, Amit Varma recalls some basic rules for beginning
writers, given by Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul. Rule #1 for beginners is
“Do
not write long sentences. A sentence should not have more than ten or twelve words.”
http://www.indiauncut.com/ How to Think Like Shakespeare http://bigthink.com/series/69# In
this multi-part web-exclusive interview for BOMBlog, George Saunders
and Patrick Dacey
discuss the writing process, storytelling technique (“Any monkey in a
story had better be a dead monkey”), and how the mind is like the trash
compactor from
Star Wars.
http://bombsite.com/issues/ Ian McEwan on Books That Have Helped
Shape His Novels In
“The Browser,” novelist Ian McEwan talks with Alec Ash about the books
that have helped shape his own, from the biography of a
scientific genius to a treatise on the end of time. He also discusses
the importance of finding “mental freedom.”
http://thebrowser.com/ A Pitfall In Writing Memoirs In “Kassandra’s Kitchen,” the reader will find an essay about “A Pitfall in Writing Memoirs.” Is telling the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth always the best policy? http://howarddenson.webs.com/ Brian Palmer counters a story in “The New York Times” which said cursive writing would disappear. In Slate.com (at
http://www.slate.com/id/ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
STUFF FROM A WRITER'S QUILL Prose books are the show dogs I sell to support my cat. – Robert Graves
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * MEETINGS
OF NFW AND OTHER GROUPS
BARD SOCIETY: Every Wednesday: 7 p.m.; Frank Green 234-8383; Email frankgrn@comcast.net
FIRST COAST CHRISTIAN WRITERS GROUP: Every Thursday, 6:45 p.m. at Charles Webb-Wesconnett Library at
the intersection of 103rd Street and Harlow Boulevard. Email: Dalyn_2@yahoo.com
or Tlsl72@yahoo.com,
FIRST COAST ROMANCE WRITERS: Second Saturday of each month; start time varies based on program; see
website Chaffee Road Library; 1425 Chaffee Road South, Jacksonville. Info:
www.firstcoastromancewriters.
MANDARIN WRITERS WORKSHOP: Second and fourth Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. at S. Mandarin Library (corner
of San Jose and Orange Picker Rd.). Larry Barnes at wordsandpics@bellsouth.net.
NORTH FLORIDA WRITERS: Second Saturday: 2 p.m. at Willowbranch Library;
2875 Park Street 32205; www.
NORTHEAST FLORIDA CHAPTER OF FLORIDA WRITERS ASSN.:
fourth Saturday of the month at 10:30 a.m. at the Ponte Vedra
Library (between Jacksonville and St. Augustine). Vic DiGenti, FWA
regional director. For more information, check www.fwapontevedra.
SISTERS IN CRIME: First Saturday of each month: 10:30 a.m. at Southeast Regional Library, 10599 Deerwood
Park Blvd., Jacksonville, FL 32256; Sherry Czerniejewski, president Email
sherrycz@aol.com
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * SOME USEFUL LINKS
THE ATAVIST (original nonfiction storytelling): http://atavist.net/
BEST LITERARY CRITICISM WEBLOGS: http://www.mastersdegree.net/
BOOK COUNTRY (sponsored by Penguin Books): http://www.bookcountry.com/
DAYS OF YORE (writers and artists’ struggles to succeed): http://www.thedaysofyore.com/
HOW LANGUAGE WORKS (the cognitive science of linguistics from Indiana University):
http://www.indiana.edu/~hlw/
THE PHRASE FINDER:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/
POETRY DAILY:
http://poems.com/
THROW GRAMMAR FROM THE TRAIN:
http://
TODAY IN LITERATURE:
http://www.todayinliterature. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * THE WRITE STAFF President: Stewart Neal (stewartneal@usa.net)
Vice President: Richard Levine (RichieL@clearwire.net) Secretary: Kathy Marsh (kathygmarsh@bellsouth.net) Treasurer: Howard Denson (hd3nson@hotmail.com) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION FOR NORTH FLORIDA WRITERS
Membership is $15 for students, $25 for individuals, and $40 for a family. (Make out checks to WRITERS.) Mail your
check to WRITERS, c/o Howard Denson, 1511 Pershing Rd., Jacksonville, FL 32205.
Name__________________________ St. address_______________________ City ______________________________ E-mail address: ______________________________ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
AP National
Writer
Hillel Italie, “Historians question White House presidential
bios”:
Tuan C. Nguyen, “New electric car may signal the end of the road for gas guzzlers” (Smart Planet):
It's Hard to Make Predictions, Especially About the Future
15 Most Famous Cafes
in the Literary World
50 Iconic Writers
Who Were
Repeatedly Rejected
V.S. Naipaul’s
Advice To
Beginning Writers
Kenji
Yoshino is spearheading a series called “How to Think Like Shakespeare”
for Big Think. Also check out other
essays on the Bard: “What Shakespeare Taught Me about Leadership,”
“Computer Software Proves Shakespeare Co-Authored Plays,” “James
Lipton’s Favorite Shakespeare Scene,” and others.
The George Saunders
Interview, Part 1
Is Cursive as Dead
As NYT says?
Not on your life
100 EXTENSIVE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES FROM AROUND THE WORLD THAT ANYONE CAN ACCESS:
https://maryandmacdesign.
CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN:
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/
CLASSIC BOOKS FOR FREE DOWNLOADS:
http://www.planetebook.com/
QUOTE INVESTIGATOR:
http://quoteinvestigator.com/
REPRESENTATIVE POETRY ONLINE:
http://rpo.library.utoronto.
1972);