Category: writer

You can’t mean that!

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment

I remember assigning Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” in a composition course for college freshmen. One of the students who read it was aghast at the idea of selling children as food. Somehow she’d missed the satire. It’s tough to pull off good satire in writing, where it shouldn’t be necessary to add cues (wink, wink, nod). Here’s an example that’s newer than the 1700s, and not in The Onion.
Scientists: Earth Endangered by New Strain of Fact-Resistant Humans – The New Yorker.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/scientists-earth-endangered-by-new-strain-of-fact-resistant-humans

To write well

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment

I remember reading On Writing Well — parts of it, anyway — in college. Zinsser offered valuable tips. It’s sad to hear he’s died. It may be time to take another look at the book.

William Zinsser, Author Of ‘On Writing Well,’ Dies At 92.
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7270170

Who gets translated?

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment

Perhaps because I’ve been working with a translator every day for a little more than a year now, I found this post interesting. I also have a couple of friends who have had books translated into languages other than English. But I had no idea there was such disparity between men and women when it comes to translating books and poetry. It didn’t surprise me that, on average, far more male  than female authors get their work translated.

Talking Translation at the 2015 PEN World Voices Festival – TRANSLATIONiSTA.
http://translationista.net/2015/05/talking-translation-at-the-2015-pen-world-voices-festival.html