Getting the Shot—Be Ready and Be Patient

I’ve had a photographic couple of days. I’m visiting San Francisco, one of the most photogenic cities on Earth, even when shrouded in fog, and home to the Golden Gate Bridge, one of the most iconic images in the world. Yesterday I spent the afternoon and early evening at SFMoMA, where the special exhibits include [...]

On Writers Groups: Part III—Rules

Just after the New Year, my writers group gathered at a German tavern in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Silver Lake to touch base over ale and wieners dunked in steins of pea soup. At that point, we had been working together for a year, but I think we all felt we were in danger [...]

On Writers Groups: Part II—Types

The past couple of weeks have been productive ones in my writers groups. Last week, in what I call my writing group, I generated a few pages of new material on a new short-story concept that’s been percolating. And this week, in what I distinguish as my writers group, I got helpful feedback and encouragement [...]

On Evan Wright, David Foster Wallace, and Their Reportage on Porn—Why Just Telling the Story Isn’t Enough

I’ve been experiencing a meta-literary moment this week. I’m reading Hella Nation by Evan Wright, author of bestseller Generation Kill, which chronicled his tour as an embedded reporter for Rolling Stone during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. (The book was also made into an HBO miniseries that’s on my DVR but not yet watched.) Wright’s [...]

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 [...]

How to Write a Press Release

As a magazine editor and writer, I’ve been reading press releases for more than a decade. This week, Southern California Review, where I serve as editor-in-chief, named the winners of the 2008 Ann Stanford Poetry Prize, and now I find myself on the other side of the mutually beneficial yet at-times antagonistic media-marketing relationship.
Yet drafting [...]