Have y’all seen the latest issue of Time Magazine? My friend and fellow Circling Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality contributor, Barbara Brown Taylor, is featured on the cover. Embracing darkness. Yes. Nancy Gibbs (Managing Editor of Time) and Morning Joe talk about Taylor here. Taylor’s latest book is called Finding God in the Dark.
I have some (much smaller) publishing news today. The prologue to my novel, Cherry Bomb, was just published at Cedars online literary magazine. They actually asked me for a submission, which was nice. And now I’ve got to get back to those revisions and get them to the agent or Cherry Bomb will never be published! So why haven’t I finished the revisions? I won’t bore you (again) with details about how busy I’ve been with the move and all that. Or how I’m going to be out of town for half of the month of May. I know it’s time to buckle down and just do it.
Anna Quindlen (Sunday With…) had some good things to say about Writer’s Block in Sunday’s Parade Magazine:
Some days I fear writing dreadfully, but I do it anyway. I’ve discovered that sometimes writing badly can eventually lead to something better. Not writing at all leads to nothing.
This is SO TRUE! So on those days when I think I can’t really accomplish a lot, I’m going to remember that I won’t accomplish anything if I don’t just do something!
On an unrelated note, I just discovered Grub Street, with this article, “Where Are Literary Writers Online?” Eve Bridburg, who founded Grub Street in 1997, is going to be joining my friend, publishing guru Porter Anderson, for a town hall “meeting” on Friday, May 2 (during The Muse & the Marketplace Conference) at 1:30 p.m. entitled “What Every Literary Writer Needs To Know About the Digital Disruption: A Town Hall Debate.” Some of the questions they will be asking are:
Why are literary authors slower to consider self-publishing?
What can digital publishing platforms (Amazon, Kobo, Vook) do to better support literary writing?
Good food for thought and discussion.
And finally, my son, Jason, just re-published my essay about his birth mother, “The Other Woman,” on his blog. Jason has several e-books and is a prolific blogger. He’s also got an online business helping folks increase traffic to their blogs. Follow him at “A Good Blog is Hard to Find” (I know, it’s the same name as the Southern authors’ blog I was part of for a few years) and “Harsh Reality.” (I really haven’t figured out the difference in these two sites.) Anyway, I love that when he shared my blog address yesterday, he said to his readers, “I would advise politeness if you visit.” Guess I raised that boy right.
Susan,
What fabulous news about the prologue to your novel!!! Congratulations!! And I loved your piece on your son’s blog. Also, I find the questions about online presence interesting. I think this even relates to that email I sent you about wanting to create a writer FB page. I have several blogger/spiritual writer friends who do have writer pages (some have published books; some do not) and are on Twitter, but I don’t think any of my “literary” MFA peeps promote themselves that way, and many are not on Twitter. I think it’s worth discussing what types of writers do use social media, what types of writers don’t, and whether or not online outlets are truly useful to writers. I think it’s also worth looking at the time social media and self-promotion requires versus the time writing requires, and how to balance it all.
You brought up some good points, Karissa. Gave me pause. thanks, always.
I found your blog through following up on Jason’s post of your essay. I didn’t personally need the warning about being polite; I’m a 50-something mom myself and always polite! I’m looking forward to reading your blog.
Hi, Joanne.Thanks for reading and commenting! And being polite:-)