MetaFilter posts tagged with writer

Abyssal chthonic resonator

fearfulsymmetry — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:59:19 -0800

RIP Robert Holdstock, writer of the Mythago Wood series and many other award winning fantasy novels.

Cormac McCarthy on The Road, fatherly love, the end of the world and lots of other things

jason's_planet — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:35:34 -0800

In a soft voice, chuckling frequently and gazing intently with gray-green eyes, Mr. McCarthy talked about books vs. films, the apocalypse, fathers and sons, past and future projects, how he writes—and God. My favorite quote: WSJ: But is there something compelling about the collaborative process [of filmmaking] compared to the solitary job of writing? CM: Yes, it would compel you to avoid it at all costs.

Gone too soon.

blaneyphoto — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:41:17 -0800

Author and educator Frank McCourt, dead at 78.

...ink by the barrel...

zarq — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:04:30 -0800

Negative reviews prompt author meltdowns: Ali ce Hoff man. Lee Oi-soo. Alain de Botton. Ayelet Waldman. Previously on MeFi. They should all probably take a deep breath, then read one of these articles. Ayelet Waldman's outraged comments on Twitter were made over Jill Lepore's negative review of her book "Bad Mother." This hilariously contradictory and ironic tweet (language, NSFW) was quickly deleted from her feed.

A Temple of Texts

mattbucher — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:27:54 -0800

William Gass's personal library. The photos accompany this article by Gass about his love of books -- specifically about collecting them over his life and "living in a library." Now in my own home I am surrounded by nearly 20,000 books, few of them rare, many unread, none of them neglected. They are there, as libraries always are, to help when needed, and who knows what writer I shall have to write on next, what subject will become suddenly essential, or what request will arrive that requires the immediate assistance of books on—well—libraries, or the language of animals or the pronunciation of Melanesian pidgin, since my essays tend to be assigned, not simply solicited, and because I am easily seduced by new themes. I can actually say a few things in Melanesian pidgin, none of them polite.

A brilliant talent gone too soon. Breece D'J Pancake.

scarello — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:21:10 -0800

Transcripts of a troubled mind tells the life and times of Breece D'J Pancake, a brilliant young writer from South Charleston, West Virginia. In a raw, stripped down style, much of his work focused on the people and the language of the Appalachia He committed suicide at the age of 29 and left behind a small, but powerful collection of stories

Sug as in sugar, rue as in rue the fucking day

Divine_Wino — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:14:25 -0800

James Crumley, Crime Novelist, Is Dead at 68 "James Crumley, a critically acclaimed crime novelist whose drug-infused, alcohol-soaked, profanity-laced, breathtakingly violent books swept the hard-boiled detective from the Raymond Chandler era into an amoral, utterly dissolute, apocalyptic post-Vietnam universe, died on Wednesday in Missoula, Mont. He was 68 and lived in Missoula." -from the NYT Obit. A 2006 interview. A 1988 interview and a review of The final Country. Reviews, profiles and so on. some dead links. James suggests you read these books. Google books preview of The Mexican Tree Duck. A remembrance by Maxim Jakubowski. Wikipedia. Some quotes culled from the links: When I finally caught up with Abraham Traherne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts, in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon. -The Last Good Kiss (his most famous line, it's quoted in all of the links, sorry, it's fantastic.) It's done. This may not be my final country. I can still taste the bear in the back of my throat, bitter with the blood of the innocent, and somewhere in my old heart I can still remember the taste of love. Perhaps this is just a resting place. A warm place to drink cold beer. But wherever my final country is, my ashes will go back to Montana when I die. Maybe I've stopped looking for love. Maybe not. Maybe I will go to Paris. Who knows? But I'll sure as hell never go back to Texas again. The Final Country (2001} Home? Home is my apartment on the east side of Hell-Roaring Creek, three rooms where I have to open the closets and drawers to be sure I'm in the right place. Home? Try a motel bar at eleven o'clock on a Sunday night, my silence shared by a pretty barmaid who thinks I'm a creep and some asshole in a plastic jacket who thinks I'm his buddy. (The Last Good Kiss) I found myself chasing ghosts across gray mountain passes, then down green valleys riddled with the snows of late spring. I took to sleeping in the same motel beds he had, trying to dream him up, took to getting drunk in the same bars, hoping for a whiskey vision. They came all right, those bleak motel dreams, those whiskey visions, but they were out of my own drifting past. As for Trahearne, I didn't have a clue. Once I even humped the same sad young whore in a trailer-complex out in the Nevada desert. She was a frail, skinny little bit out of Cincinnati, and she had brought her gold-mine out west, thinking perhaps it might assay better, but her shaft had collapsed, her veins petered out, and the tracks on her skin looked like they had been dug with a rusty pick. After I had slaked too many nights of aimless barstool lust amid her bones, I asked her again about Trahearne. She didn't say anything at first, she just lay on her crushed bed-sheets, hitting on a joint. "You reckon they actually went up there to the moon?" she asked seriously. (The Last Good Kiss) If you like the hardest of hardboiled crime fiction and somehow you've missed Crumley, you are in for a treat.

Condensed: 'Care, constraint, concise, cut, character, clarity, and charity.'

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 18:35:00 -0800

How to Write With Style.

"The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor..."

dersins — Thu, 22 May 2008 11:23:45 -0800

The Willa Cather Archive is an incredible resource provided by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, including biographies, letters, photos, and even full (often annotated) text of much of her writing, including scholarly editions of two of her greatest (and most famous) works, My Antonia and O Pioneers. About the archive.

Fine Lampwork Beads by Kim Neely

netbros — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:32:46 -0800

Kim Neely has enjoyed a very rich professional life already. A writer for Rolling Stone for fifteen years, she also penned the Pearl Jam biography. These days find Kim involved in an entirely different pursuit. Lampworking is a type of glass work that uses a gas fueled torch to melt rods and tubes of clear and colored glass. At her mom's unused workshop Kim created Bluff Road Art Glass. A few of my favorites include these glass bones, this necklace called fossil, and this fine silver link bracelet. Kim also blogs her work.

This is the way the world ends

Artw — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:53:59 -0800

Superstar Scottish comics writer Grant Morrison is about to tear the DC Universe apart again with Final Crisis, the latest in a series of apocalypses and world ending events he's inflicted on various comics worlds over the years. But there was a time before fame when he wrote the tie-in comic for ZOIDS, the robot dinosaur children's toy. So what did he do? Ushered in the apocalypse, in the form of THE BLACK ZOID.

Let's think of it as a thank-you note

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:02:20 -0800

"I love reading your letters—I do. But I couldn't get into it. I just don't have a column in me this week." A sweet, sad eulogy from columnist Dan Savage.

Tears are a stupid trick of god

nola — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:53:37 -0800

A clip from the film Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus featuring Harry Crews (at 1:14) the film was shot for the bbc, narrated by the singer song writer Jim White, Andrew Douglas directed. More about Crews inside. "Harry Crews was born in Bacon County on June 7, 1935" A writer who's work includes A Feast of Snakes, Scar Lover, and All We Need of Hell. Here, in a clip from the same film Crews tells a story about his childhood. More about his background from New Georgia Encyclopiedia, and his home page Also a clip from the long forgotten Denis Miller Show Previously

the gray train

The Jesse Helms — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:47:17 -0800

"Google “brooklyn writer” and you’ll get, Did you mean: the future of literature as we know it? People are coming in from all over. In fact, the physical act of moving your possessions from Manhattan to Brooklyn is now the equivalent of a two-year M.F.A. program. When you get to the other side, they hand you three Moleskine notebooks and a copy of “Blogging for Dummies.” You’re good to go."

Peter Wayne

criticalbill — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:17:23 -0800

Meet Peter Wayne. Prolific literary writer, book reviewer, architectural correspondent, church organist, chronic recidivist, drug addict, released, homeless, back in prison

Who was Opal Whiteley?

dersins — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:06:42 -0800

In 1918, at the age of 20, Oregonian Opal Whiteley published "The Fairyland Around Us" (contains full text & pictures), a nature book for children. Two years later, her diary (also contains full text and pictures) was published and became one of the best-selling books in the world. She died in a British mental hospital in 1992. More.

Stranger in a Strange Land

infini — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 22:35:12 -0800

7/7/7 marks the 100th birthday of Grandmaster Robert Anson Heinlein, born July 7th 1907. Long live Lazarus Long! While any attempt at a tribute would but naturally turn into a passionate link infested paean to this visionary genius, one of the Big 3, along with Asimov and Clarke, one must honour his contribution with a pointer to the Heinlein Concordance, a portal of his stories, characters, concepts and timelines.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. ~ Robert A. Heinlein 1907 - 1988

"I originally set out to try and save the world, but now I’m not sure I like it enough."

dead_ — Tue, 15 May 2007 10:32:26 -0800

Pinning down the elusive Banksy. "The art world is the biggest joke going," he has said. "It’s a rest home for the overprivileged, the pretentious, and the weak." Yet the stencilist/graffiti writer's pieces regularly sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds at places like Sotheby's--not bad for a man who still remains cloaked in complete anonymity. The New Yorker gets a rare e-mail interview. [Previously: 1, 2, 3]

Under the Hood

oh pollo! — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:48:44 -0800

Resonance FM gives you an interview with writer Alan Moore in three parts. I,II & III [.mp3]

A day to be thankful for resublimated thiotimoline.

escabeche — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 09:57:11 -0800

Think you get a lot done? Isaac Asimov (pronounced like "has, him, of" without the h's) , who would have turned 87 today, wrote or edited over 500 books, including science-fiction novels, introductions to organic chemistry (a field in which he held a professorship at B.U.) , indispensable anthologies of early science fiction, jokebooks, guides to Shakespeare, and collections of lively essays on science that have introduced thousands of people to the pleasures of thinking hard about the universe. He also found the time to write a few essays and write postcards to his fans. His story "Runaround" , from his 1950 collection I, Robot, is the only piece of fiction I know centered on the properties of a differential equation. His Foundation Trilogy was given a special Hugo award in 1966 as the best science fiction series of all time; a movie version, to be written by Jeff Vintar and directed by Shekhar Kapur, is currently in development. Previous AsimovFilter: here, here, here. Feel like a slacker yet? Stop reading MetaFilter and get to work!

Jack Williamson, 1908-2006

mcwetboy — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 09:09:25 -0800

When Jack Williamson published his first story, Isaac Asimov was eight years old. Seventy-three years later, his novella, "The Ultimate Earth," won the Hugo and Nebula awards. Easily the longest career in science fiction, and one of the most distinguished, came to a close yesterday: Williamson died at the age of 98. (Boing Boing, Locus.)

David Gemmell has died.

essexjan — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 08:48:58 -0800

David Gemmell has died.

The Room: Best/Worst/Best Vanity Project Ever

boost ventilator — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 12:03:20 -0800

The Room: The Movie. Triple-threat (actor/writer/director) Tommy Wiseau made his cinematic debut in 2003 with the The Room (see trailer and various scenes), "a blend between a softcore porn flick and a Tennessee Williams stageplay." Wiseau ("who's not just one of the most unusual looking and sounding-with an unidentifiable Eastern European accent-leading men ever to grace the screen, but a narcissist nonpareil whose movie makes Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny" seem the apotheosis of cinematic self-restraint...may be something of a first: A movie that prompts most of its viewers to ask for their money back-before even 30 minutes have passed." - Variety), allegedly raised $6 million outside Hollywood to cover production and marketing costs of the self-described "black comedy about love, passion, betrayal and lies" (see various rough dress rehersals). Audience members, including comedian David Cross, have been "marveling at the bizarre editing, bad bluescreen, uncomfortably explicit sex scenes and, of course, the enigma of Wiseau himself" as the film played monthly for years in Los Angeles. Available on DVD, diehard "roomies" swear by the theatrical experience, shout out their own commentary, hurl spoons at the screen and singalong to the soundtrack. Some call it "The Rocky Horror of the New Millenium" and stage "Room" parties. If you look at the marketing campaign or survived a screening you might see The Room as "a seminar on how NOT to make a movie." [Inspired by Boing Boing]

Fifty years ago did Viagra kill fifteen whales...

Wolfdog — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 08:45:44 -0800

The world's longest MadLib, based on Moby Dick, can be downloaded as a blank, or filled in by some 200 collaborating writers (in Microsoft Word format, I'm afraid).

Robots Battle on Broadway and Big Screen

jrb223 — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:39:42 -0800

Performing Artists and The Robot Uprising: Wri ters, Actors, and Directors bring us one step closer to the robot apocalypse, or provide us the necessary training to win the battle.