There's not a woman turns her face
Upon a broken tree,
And yet the beauties that I loved
Are in my memory;
I spit into the face of Time
That has transfigured me.
-W.B. Yeats, The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
Literary Entrepreneurship Salon has an interesting interview with Dave Eggers, whose comments on procrastination remind me of some of my blogging bursts On procrastination
Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Performance Under Pressure
Athletes under pressure model good behavior for writers to follow.
Sally Jenkins is an award-winning sports columnist for The Washington Post whose years of reporting and writing about athletic performance has led her to see a provocative connection between those of us who test our limits on a keyboard instead of a football field. In an e-mail interview, Jenkins describes what athletes can teach writers about improving performance. The author of five books, including "It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life" with cyclist Lance Armstrong, Jenkins has also worked at Sports Illustrated.
• How and when did you make the connection between writing and performance issues? [Scientists may have found what makes a tune catchy, after locating the brain area where a song's "hook" gets caught. When familiar tunes played, the cortex activity continued during the blanks - and the volunteers indeed said they still mentally "heard" the tunes. Researchers have previously argued that catchy songs work by causing a "brain itch" that can only be scratched by repeating the tune How tunes get stuck in your head ;Stark Young, letter to Thomas Wolfe: Not many of the living are so real as the dead that are beloved Art of Living ]
• · W. Somerset Maugham, Don Fernando: To write simply is as difficult as to be good When Rivers Are Digital, Where's The History? ; anadian literature has been hot in recent years. But where does this writing come from? Tracing CanLit Back To Its Source ; Canadian Double Dragon capturing the crown for grown-ups Every Reading Experience Doubles
• · · MP3 blogs, where fans post beloved niche songs and comments, are safe middle ground in the downloading wars. Some labels even see them as a marketing tool Music's cease-fire zone ; David D'Arcy is one of only a few reporters who understand and have been covering the complex Nazi era art restitution story and he is a respected arts reporter. No print media have yet reported the story that appears below; Artnet News is the first to report publicly. Lining Up To Support D'Arcy
• · · · Eric Beecher, Diana Gribble, Misha Ketchell Crikey ; Attention Buzz Aldrin, Richard Bach, Margaret Wise Brown, Douglas Coupland, Bob Dylan, Bill Gates, and Others: Czechs Are Waiting. The Authors Registry has posted a list of about 300 writers for whom they have collected--but have not been able to pay through--$100,000 in royalties Authors Sought
• · · · · One of our favored rumored candidates for an executive position at Harper has gotten the job, as the company announced yesterday that Miramax Books president and editor-in-chief Jonathan Burnham will join as publisher of the Harper imprint, reporting to Michael Morrison. His starting date is "being determined." Harper Plus Again, with Burnham; Avalon Absorbs Shoemaker in Full; Anansi is Minus Sharpe
(Source: Publishers Lunch) Anansi boss Martha Sharpe suddenly quits ; The Impac Award, the "world's richest literary prize The Longest Shortlist
• · · · · · Amazon Publishes its 2004 Bestseller Lists ; Jason Leopold's book critical of journalists OFF THE RECORD has been cancelled shortly before its planned release, according to the Washington Post. Click through for the whole complex story.
From the Could Have Seen This Coming Department