Isn’t it romantic?

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment

Years ago, a friend of mine gave me a grocery bag full of romance novels. She loved them and was sure I would too. After reading most of the books in the brown paper bag, I understood the basic plot lines, the key euphemisms, and the general nature of the character development. I gave the books to someone else and I haven’t read any more. While it’s not my genre, some of my friends love to write it. In this interview, Lisa Kleypas shares lessons from her 30 years of writing romance novels.

An Interview With Historical Romance Legend Lisa Kleypas.
http://jezebel.com/an-interview-with-historical-romance-legend-lisa-kleypa-1703917812

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

Pack up

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment

Last year, before I went to Italy, I spent a lot of time looking for the best travel writing tips. But I had forgotten that merely traveling is a way to improve one’s writing. This sensationally-headlined blog post (super-sexy?) does offer several good reasons for getting away. And now I have a couple of trips I need to plan.

The Simple, Super-Sexy, Science-Backed Way to Improve Your Writing Skills.
http://writetodone.com/improve-your-writing-skills/

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