Oh my god, after three days of the kind of intensity that only a conference of thousands of creative writers under one roof could generate, I am spent. And yet, at 4:30 on Saturday, as I walk away from the Oregon Convention Center at the end of my last session at the Association for WritersContinue reading “A Single Dispatch After the AWP Conference”
Category Archives: Publishing
On Reading An Unpublished Novel I Finished 15 Years Ago
The novel has been sitting in a box, both a real box on my desk and a virtual box on my hard drive. I miss it. I finished it some fifteen years ago, having labored over it throughout the preceding five or six years. I have fond memories of its composition and of the wayContinue reading “On Reading An Unpublished Novel I Finished 15 Years Ago”
#110: Shameless Self-Promotion (An Advertisement Poem)
The NaPoWriMo website today suggests that we try an advertisement poem. That’s an actual thing, apparently. As an example, the NaPoWriMo curator provides Exhibit A: Said Farmer Brown Who’s bald on top “Wish I could Rotate the crop” Burma-Shave So rather than create a poem advertising Burma Shave or a made-up product or some thingContinue reading “#110: Shameless Self-Promotion (An Advertisement Poem)”
2013 in review: Not Bad
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. I’m not sure if people are interested in this thing or not, but the WordPress.com helper monkeys sent me this report and offered me a link that would allow me to share it with my readers, so at least in the opinionContinue reading “2013 in review: Not Bad”
On New Year’s Resolutions, Or, On Having Blogged A Bunch and the Dangers of Repeating Oneself
I began composing a blog entry this morning about New Year’s Resolutions. The direction I was going felt compelling. I was proud of the opening paragraph. I was on to something and feeling clever and witty and all of that jazz. I was also feeling a bit of deja vu, like somehow, I remembered writing,Continue reading “On New Year’s Resolutions, Or, On Having Blogged A Bunch and the Dangers of Repeating Oneself”
In Celebration of My 100th Blog Post
It’s a milestone, don’t you think? It seems so to me. This blog post right here, the one I hope you are currently reading, is the 100th blog entry by Michael Jarmer. It took me two plus years to get here. So help me do the math. What is it? 50 posts a year? That’sContinue reading “In Celebration of My 100th Blog Post”
Combustion Deconstruction: Some Musings on the Fate of a First Novel
I started writing my first novel when I was, perhaps, 28 years old, I finished it coming out of an MFA program when I was 32, revised it when I was 35, began a long, demoralizing, tedious, and ultimately unsuccessful agent search, and then, when I was 40, I put the novel in the proverbialContinue reading “Combustion Deconstruction: Some Musings on the Fate of a First Novel”
Of Being Tired of Writing About Teaching
I think, at least for now, I’ve exhausted my brain and my “pen” regarding teaching, issues of public schooling, educational crisis, education reform. I know I will come back to it. It’s inevitable. But for the time being I feel like anything I have to say now will be a repeat of something I haveContinue reading “Of Being Tired of Writing About Teaching”
Of Resolutions
The only new year’s resolution I’ve ever made and then kept was the one I made last year to publish my novel Monster Talk in 2012. But I think I was cheating because the decision to do the thing was made before the close of 2011 by a couple of days–so the ball was inContinue reading “Of Resolutions”
Monster Talk: Of a Race of Devils
Wherein Michael Jarmer reads an entire chapter from his novel in one take with only two negligible errors; wherein the author taxes the attention span and patience of his readers/watchers/listeners with a 12 minute video blog; wherein he learns never to do that again; wherein Michael Jarmer uses the natural lighting to freaky advantage; andContinue reading “Monster Talk: Of a Race of Devils”
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