Category: Uncategorized

For this week’s market spotlight, we look at The New Yorker, a weekly magazine of news, culture, and literature.

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The New Yorker: Spotlight Market

The New Yorker was established in 1925 by Harold Ross “as a lighthearted, Manhattan-centric magazine.” The weekly magazine has grown into a national (and even international) touchstone of culture and literature—both in print and online.

The editors say, “Today The New Yorker is considered by many to be the most influential magazine in the world, renowned for its in-depth reporting, political and cultural commentary, fiction, poetry, and humor.”

What They’re Looking For: According to their guidelines, The New Yorker currently considers unsolicited poetry and fiction, including submissions to their Shouts & Murmurs section. The editors caution writers, “Keep in mind that Shouts & Murmurs are humorous fiction; first-person essays will not be considered.”

For fiction submissions, the editors try to respond to acceptances within 90 days and say, “If you have not heard from us within ninety days, please assume that we will not be able to publish your manuscript.”

For Shouts & Murmurs, the editors also try to respond within 90 days. Unlike other fiction submissions, they advise, “We ask that you not send us more than one submission at a time, and that you wait to hear back about each pending submission before sending another.”

For poetry, the editors try to respond within 6 months of submission and ask that poets submit only twice per year. The editors say, “We do not consider work that has appeared elsewhere (this includes all Web sites and personal blogs). We are interested in translations of poems that have never been published in English.”

How to Submit: For fiction, writers can send complete manuscripts to fiction@newyorker.com as PDF attachments. They can also submit via post to Fiction Editor, The New Yorker, 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007.

For Shouts & Murmurs, writers can send submissions to TNY_Shouts@newyorker.com.

For Poetry, poets can send up to 6 poems in one document per submission via their Submittable page.

Click here to learn more and submit.

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Have you always wanted to be a writer? Don’t let doubt or fear get the best of you—take a chance and learn how to start writing a book, novel, short story, memoir, or essay. When you take this online writing workshop, you’ll discover your voice, learn the basics of grammar and examine the different types of writing.

Click to continue.

The post The New Yorker: Market Spotlight by Robert Lee Brewer appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Here are 12 E.L. Doctorow quotes for writers and about writing from the author of Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, and The March. In these quotes, Doctorow covers novel writing, the mind, retirement, and more.

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E.L. Doctorow was the author of several novels, including Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, and The March (all of which won the National Book Critics Circle Award). Many of his books have been adapted into movies and often placed fictional characters into familiar historical contexts interacting with known historical figures.

(Writing historical fiction from fact.)

Doctorow was born January 6, 1931. In his early 20s, he was drafted into the Army and served in West Germany in 1954-55 before becoming a reader for a motion picture company. Then, he worked as a book editor at New American Library and Dial Press before pursuing a full-time writing career. Along the way, he also taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Princeton University, and other institutions. He died of lung cancer on July 21, 2015.

Here are 12 E.L. Doctorow quotes for writers and about writing that cover novel writing, retirement, and more.

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12 E.L. Doctorow quotes for writers and about writing

“America never gives you anything without you having to pay for it.”

“If you think about it, all novels, all stories, are set in the past.”

“I’ve always thought that I don’t have a style, that I don’t want one, that each book has its own style. That’s its identity.”

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Write Better Novels!

Push yourself beyond your comfort zone and take your writing to new heights with this Advanced Novel Writing workshop meant for novelists who are looking for book editing and specific feedback on their work. When you take this online workshop, you won’t have weekly reading assignments or lectures. Instead, you’ll get to focus solely on completing your novel.

While it is possible to write a novel in a month, in this workshop you’ll spend 15 weeks writing yours—all the while gaining valuable feedback and getting the encouragement you need in order to finish writing your novel. You’ll also learn specific tips for outlining and how not to write a novel. One thing is for certain though—by the end of this online workshop, you will have the tools and know-how to write a great novel.

Click to continue.

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“I’ve never thought about retiring. Most writers die before they retire.”

“One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing.”

“People know that novelists are liars. And that’s why we can be trusted to tell the truth.”

“The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.’”

(Free charts and tips for outlining and plotting a novel.)

“The nature of good fiction is that it dwells in ambiguity.”

“We may never understand the way the brain becomes the mind, but if we ever do, that’s the end of us.”

“Writing is immensely difficult. The short forms especially.”

“Writing is not a matter of inventing; it’s a matter of discovering.”

“You do have to learn about yourself while you’re writing, and your characteristic ways of self-sabotage.”

 

The post 12 E.L. Doctorow Quotes for Writers and About Writing by Robert Lee Brewer appeared first on Writer's Digest.

 

There are many books I’ve been enchanted by, but if I had to choose one I would say A Thousand and One Nights. When I read it recently, I was struck by the prodigious unknown imagination that stands behind this work – the first text created that relies on magical realism. Many stories in the book also contain a surreal narrative texture – a surrealism with deep roots in folk customs and traditions. It embraces a typology of kings and princes, people and jinn and how they behave, as well as stories of markets and methods of government. Out of these elements spring imaginings, reconstructions of reality and blends of the ordinary with fantasies, nightmares and dreams. Credit for all that goes to the writer’s, or writers’, ability to penetrate the layers of social life with features that are traditional relative to today, and that have preserved a specifically Islamic heritage, providing a “roof” for the story and psychological depth for the characters.

Similarly one can deduce from the text itself that the author had a deep knowledge of Arab history in general and had a striking acquaintance with the relationships between Judaism, Christianity and Islam and the origins of the three religions. He, she or they had a special interest in Solomon’s relationship with the jinn, and wide knowledge of chemistry, geography, warfare, how to measure the distance between cities by the hour, the day or the month, fashion, material culture, precious stones, varieties of charlatanry, cuisine, seas, birds and other animals. Whether the text was originally written in Arabic or translated from Farsi, it shows signs of linguistic experimentation, especially through its inclusion of colloquialisms (especially Egyptian), which are then incorporated into standard Arabic. This embellishes the style and makes A Thousand and One Nights a narrative reference for anyone who is drawn to experimentation in writing.

The stories in A Thousand and One Nights mostly flow into one from another, which creates a unity. That unity demonstrates the mental and stylistic abilities of the writer/s as he/she/they create a balance between the power of each derived story on the one hand and the main source story on the other. This sets the imagination free. It is almost automatic writing – completely receptive to adventure. I fell in love with A Thousand and One Nights. It is a masterpiece of imagination and a valuable source for the possibilities of human relationships both good and bad, expressed in the form of dreams and disappointments, in all their violence and their vigor.

 

 

Photograph © dynamosquito

The post Best Book of Any Year: A Thousand and One Nights appeared first on Granta Magazine.

For Wilfred Owen, ‘the poetry is in the pity’. Many poets, from war poets like Owen to poets writing about social and political issues, pity and sympathy have formed an important part of the poet’s emotional makeup. Here, we gather some of the greatest poems about sympathy, pity, compassion, and […]

The post The Best Poems about Sympathy and Compassion appeared first on Interesting Literature.