Top 20 Literate US Cities

Amazon released an interesting list of the Top 20 Literate Cities in America.

The Top 5 are University cities, but after that it gets interesting, with major metro areas stealing the spots - though not as major as you might think. It's a fresh way to evaluate our country, that's for sure!

Eugene Peterson Article: In Print At Last!

Almost nothing on Earth feels better than finally seeing your article from month's ago appear in print (and on the web) with a nice check. That's the feeling I got to enjoy today!

I snagged the interview at Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Writingin April, 2010.

The next festival is April 19-21, 2012 and Marilynne Robinson (among others) has already agreed to attend. Don't even think about missing it!

Freelancing is Not Writing

The weird thing about freelancing your writing / editing skills is that even when you're freelancing, you're not actually writing because it's not what your heart yearns to write. Oh sure, you're typing out lovely sentences or remolding other people's efforts into shiny attractions, but it's not where your heart beats. It enhances your craft immensely (a must) and creates cash flow, but it's not your deepest calling.

For whatever reason, it's often difficult for me to switch from freelancing mode to deeper calling writing. I can zip out the emails, scribble down cool stuff the kid did, and create marketing materials at work while freelancing, but the undercurrents of hope and desire demand an immersion that often frightens me. This immersion demands an effort I may not be able to enact--so it's easier to choose lesser pursuits (or chase distractions) than to face it.

Nose-to-Nose

Maybe that's how everyone feels when standing nose-to-nose with their calling, but when you're alone with the laptop, there's no one to cheer you on. That's why reading author interviews, author biographies, literary journals, and writing books is essential for my well-being--it maintains my perspective.

This little "Best Advice" tidbit from Narrative Magazine is what is pushing me on at the moment:

“We were talking about our creative writing students at Stanford, when the poet Alan Shapiro told me, “The most important talent is the talent for work. Without that, nothing else much matters.” Over the years I have found that advice increasingly persuasive." - Ron Hansen

Hmmm

Not "quality work," not "immortal sentences," not "stunning characterization," but work.

Freelancing may not be writing, but maybe it isn't a waste either. Maybe it's what my life needs to add texture and humanity to my deeper calling. Maybe I just need to learn to live with the fear so that the work can accumulate into something greater.

Though I cannot glimpse its completion now, I must continue to compose it in faith.

Dead Authors Tweet!

But of course they do!

The Atlantic has a fun slide show on Flannery O'Conner, Charlotte Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and this gem from Mark Twain:

Typical tweet: If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.

Lost C.S. Lewis Revealed!

Turns out a partial translation of The Aenid by C.S. Lewis has surfaced! Since most felt like his exhaustive catalog was complete, this is an unexpected addition. Naturally, it's getting more than its fair share of scrutiny.

Great Writing Quote: Memoir

"Because everyone 'has' a memoir, we all have a stake in how such stories are told. For we do not, after all, simply have experience; we are entrusted with it. We must do something--make something--with it. A story, we sense, is the only possible habitation for the burden of our witnessing."

Patricia Hampl, "Red Sky in the Morning"
from Janet Burroway, Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft

P.S. I hope you enjoyed Lee Ann's interview with Kris Newman last week. Wasn't that great? I had to go look up her blog (of course), and now I've added it to my blogroll.

What are you reading and/or writing these days? Any must-reads to recommend for the summer?

The Kris Newman Interview

This blog has long been focused on promoting our effort as Apostolics to establish a presence in print. I am excited to report one of our readers has finished and published a book! The interview that follows shares her story.

Lee Ann (LA): Thanks for taking a moment to share an update with us. You've been a friend of ninetyandnine and the Word blog for years; how did your journey as a writer begin?

Kris Newman (KN): I have always been a writer, of sorts, or at least a storyteller. As the oldest of the “cousins” in my family it was my job to keep the youngers occupied. Reading and making up stories came naturally. I was in 7th grade the first time a teacher called me a writer and encouraged me to put my words on paper. I think my first piece with 90&9 was an interview of the band Plan:Be.

In the summer of 2009, I started a blog (krisanewman.blogspot.com) which has reached a sizable following. The blog’s popularity convinced me I might have enough written works enjoyed by an audience to put together a book. The theme of the blog is the view of life through a writer's eyes; how we experience things and view events. I guess people kind of like it.

LA: And now you've written a book! Tell us about it.

KN: It’s called The Book of Pages About Crossing Bridges. The title is long, but I expect it to be a part of a collection. I write about facing difficult times without becoming bitter or feeling like a victim. Life isn’t always easy, but that doesn’t mean some good can’t result from the difficulties. Bridges encourages the reader to look through a different perspective and learn the lessons of the dark times. In particular I talk about growing up in foster care, being divorced, working full-time and going to college full-time, facing life alone and rediscovering my own identity in Christ as I watch Him continually put my broken life together.

LA: You've found a very successful way to self-publish. What did you do?

KN: I used Createspace.com, which is a publishing arm of Amazon.com. It was very, very easy! It requires a minimal financial commitment, nothing compared to other publishers, and walks you through the entire process of cover art, set-up, editing and even marketing. The customer service is fantastic! They give you as much or as little help as you need. I researched several self-publishing options and found this to be incredibly easy and cost-effective. I highly recommend it!

LA: For many of us, the idea of writing a book can be intimidating or seem overwhelming. What was the biggest obstacle for you and how did you overcome it?

KN: I think I speak for many writers when I say the biggest obstacle was believing that I had an audience interested in my writing. I can believe that someone might want to read a book review I have written, but the idea that my view of life would interest someone else is hard to understand. It was the blog’s popularity and reader response which changed my mind. Readers kept asking me when I was going to put a book together. One of them suggested I take my blog pages and connect them and make a book of pages. Their positive feedback helped me cross that bridge.

LA: What advice do you wish you'd have known when you got started that you could share with other writers out there?

KN: I wish I had known how easy it was to self-publish. I always thought I would have to have an agent’s approval and a publisher’s support to make a book worth reading. That simply isn’t the case. The same with a blog. Once a writer can see they have an audience, publishing is the next natural step.

LA: What is your next writing project?

KN: Finishing my papers for the end of this semester. J As for a published work, I have a couple of children’s books just about ready (except for illustrations) and possibly another Book of Pages. Time will tell!

Great Writing Quote: Beauties of Art

“Let me say, right off, that I believe a work of art is primarily concerned with the creation of beauty, whether through words, colors, shapes, sounds or movement. But it is impossible to read serious novels, poetry, essays, and biographies without also growing convinced that they gradually enlarge our minds, refine our spirits, make us more sensitive and understanding.”

Michael Dirda, Book by Book

Great Writing Quote: Novel = Humanity's Finest Effort

“It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Great Writing Quote: Worship By Wrting

"My deepest ambition is to harness this fleeting consciousness, this reality that we think of as ourselves, in order to worship by writing. That sounds very different from what I mean. What I mean is that I think finally writing is an act of prayer, or certainly an act of faith. It needs to be done with increasing craft as you live." -Jeanne Murray Walker, Image, No. 68.

If you're interested in writing with a deeper Christian meaning, you must subscribe to Image, a meaty, quarterly journal that's challenges via essays, fiction, and poetry.