Category: On Writing

My intermittent rumbles on writing, aspiring to write and the writing life. I store pent-up anger in this closet.

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30Hz Bl-g On Writing

Putting Fun Back in Short Fiction? Now that’s funny.

MFA Workshop by Stoning

I haven’t lost my sh!t about this particular topic in a few years, but like the hook from “Holding Out for a Hero,” it’s always there, lurking in the back of my mind, ready to cloud all conscious activity until I spin Side A of the Footloose soundtrack for three straight hours. At which point I will either eradicate Bonnie Tyler from my mind or pass out from Kenny Loggins overload. (Which could never happen. Not really.) My beef has nothing to do with music so permit me to rampage about my life of writing for a few paragraphs. I do hope you are sufficiently entertained by rage-fueled hyperbole. I speak today of literary narrow-mindedness.

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30Hz Bl-g On Writing

Words and Music

Words and Music
Quick one of these stars is still alive. The time to cash in on the sequel is running short.

I don’t mean to trod on the coattails of the magnificent 1948 Judy Garland/Lena Horne/Gene Kelly/June Allyson/Mickey Rooney flick but sometimes there’s no other way around it. Truth be told, I’ve never seen this movie and I’m just ripping off the title for a rumination on the relationship between writing and music. But seeing as how I’m providing more press for this movie than it’s received in fifty years, I feel I’m paying my royalties.

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30Hz Bl-g On Writing

A Response to all the MFA Curmudgeony

The interwebs have been abuzz (in certain circles – not the normal world, of course, since everyone else is busy discussing important things like maybe Occupy Wall St.) with furor over MFA rankings published in the Sept/Oct issue of Poets & Writers. After all, bloggers are generally writers and because we’re writers we have things to say about everything. Of course the masses would take arms against their supposed oppressors. As an MFA graduate myself, I’d been non-stop furious for weeks now. Okay, actually I’ve been entirely disinterested in the rankings. Nothing more than noise. Poets & Writers had decided to fill a void of information. MFA programs flourish in my mind due to two factors: reputation and location. I wanted to go to school in Maine so I did. If P&W wanted to attempt to make something official so be it. Was my school even ranked? I don’t remember. I checked the list out of mild curiosity before placing that issue along with my other writing mags in the basket next to the toilet. I’ve not been ignorant of the rumblings but they haven’t interested me. Until I stumbled across a blog post by the managing editor of the Missouri Review.

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