‘Pippin’ Breaks the Magic Spell

photo credit: Craig Schwartz
Other than a vague impression that it was a musical, I knew little about Pippin as I took my seat at the Mark Taper Forum in downtown Los Angeles Tuesday night. A season ticket holder to the theater, I don’t so much select productions to see as show up at the appointed [...]

Wednesday Writing Exercise: Group Highlights

I recently joined a new writing group that’s different from any other in which I’ve participated. Rather than sharing their work for critique, these writers gather once a week to, well, write.
This is how it works: each member—as few as three, as many as twelve—comes prepared with a prompt. After some warm-up meditation/relaxation, someone offers [...]

Monday Morning Grammar: Nouns Part II—Plurals

This week, Monday Morning Grammar continues our discussion on that most basic part of speech, the noun. Last week, we established what a noun is, common versus proper nouns, and count versus noncount nouns. Today, let’s look at plural nouns.
In most cases, plural nouns are formed by adding s or es to the end of [...]

AWP Dispatch: NEA Grant Apps

At nine a.m. on the first day of AWP, informational sessions already provided the practical advice sought by conference attendees. Much of what was reviewed during this morning’s panel on “Applying to the National Endowment for the Arts: Helpful Hints for Arts Organizations” is readily available at www.nea.gov and www.grants.gov, but John Parrish Peede, Director [...]

Writing and Editing News Roundup

Yes, 2009 is off to a rocky start for Mots Justes. Returning to a regular posting schedule post-thesis has proven just as challenging as returning to a regular writing schedule post-thesis. (More on that later.)
This will change, however, this week as the Association of Writers and Writing Programs kicks off in Chicago. MJ will be [...]

Best Books Read in 2008

For years I’ve been putting together year-end top-ten lists of movies. One can do this as a film critic because one has presumably seen a prodigious number of current titles in order to make a qualified assessment of the cinematic offerings from the past twelve months. (Reading these rankings, however, can become eye-blurringly repetitive, with [...]

“Review” Revue

Mots Justes hopes you’ll indulge a little self-promotion today, as the second edition of Southern California Review is now available! The literary journal, published by the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California, celebrated with a joint reading with MPW at the Spot in Culver City, a wonderful, lit-friendly café/lounge—as long [...]

“Every Life Is Worthy of a Novel”

At a special event curated by novelist Mona Simpson at the Hammer Museum in Westwood last week, Michael Cunningham (Specimen Days, The Hours, A Home at the End of the World) gave the audience an early holiday present: a reading from his as-yet unpublished, untitled next novel. The passage was enthralling, and he cut it [...]

Deadlines Are Our Friends—Part II: How to Function Without One

As discussed at length in yesterday’s post, I handed in my thesis last week. As the deadline approached, I was writing furiously, madly. Now that the deadline has passed, however, I fear I may stop. (I prefer to think of my current lapse as a “break” or a “pause” as I consider my next step.) [...]

Deadlines Are Our Friends

Hello again! Yes, Mots Justes is back online, having survived the thesis throes. And yes, as a commenter on the post below notes, unfortunately it is well past November 4. Here’s what happened:
As noted in my last post, I decided that during the last month before my thesis was due, I could ill afford any [...]