From the category archives:

Commonplace Book

2009, Wa[i]ved

December 22, 2009 Commonplace Book
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Publishing’s suicide

December 5, 2009 Being a Writer

Jesse Kornbluth from PW:

Book publishing has been trying to commit suicide for all the decades I’ve been writing, and now it’s finally getting some traction on that project. Its latest folly is ironic: one of our most antitechnology businesses now places unrealistic hopes on technology as a savior, a textbook case of an American [...]

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Yay for impartiality in book reviewing!

September 15, 2009 Being a Writer

Now where’s my free gift?

(cross-posted via Posterous)

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I just wonder…

April 8, 2009 Being a Writer

A. O. Scott, writing in the NYT:
“And just as the iPod has killed the album, so the Kindle might, in time, spur a revival of the short story. If you can buy a single song for a dollar, why wouldn’t you spend that much on a handy, compact package of character, incident and linguistic invention? [...]

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Vigorous, versatile, zestful

March 15, 2009 Commonplace Book

Alfred Bester:
Deliver science fiction from any necessity to have purpose and value. Science fiction is far above the utilitarian yardsticks of the technical minds, the agency minds, the teaching minds. Science fiction is not for Squares. It’s for the modern Renaissance Man…vigorous, versatile, zestful…full of romantic curiosity and impractical speculation.

(Via)

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Driving readers away with advertising

March 14, 2009 Commonplace Book

A Working Library – On advertising:
So, let’s stop pretending, shall we? Any economy which charges ever less for ever more intrusive ads will eventually be successful not in creating wealth but in driving the readers away, until the only ones left to heed the ads are all the other ads, the cell phones searching in [...]

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“Praise song for the day”

January 20, 2009 Commonplace Book

I couldn’t agree more with my old friend Valerie. I loved the inaugural poem.
Valerie’s Blog » Blog Archive » elizabeth alexander gratitude.
In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

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A Cultural Renaissance

January 4, 2009 Commonplace Book

The Undercurrent of a Cultural Renaissance:
The Web is sparking a cultural renaissance that is globally surging with free thought and insight. And, it’s changing how we think about life, how we go through life, and how we share experiences and stories…We’re going to see a fundamental shift in everything – especially our priorities.

(via Jesse Newhart)

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