Welcome to this Monday’s post, dear writerly readers! As of this year, the fifth Monday of the month, when there is one, is for my newsletter, covering my publications, podcasts, selected posts from Madam Mayo, and upcoming workshops. Plus cyberflanerie.
Over the past few months, apart from waiting for the pears to ripen, I’ve mainly been working on my book on Far West Texas, and relatedly, the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project.
PODCASTS
The Marfa Mondays Podcast 21: “Great Power in One: Miss Charles Emily Wilson”
Check out the new website for the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project, where you can listen to in to 21 of the projected 24 podcasts anytime, and find the transcripts as well.
Next up in the series: An interview with Bill Smith about the cactus capital of Sanderson, Texas.
SELECTED MADAM MAYO POSTS
Writing Workshop Posts
(every second Monday of the month):
Conjecture: The Powerful, Upfront, Fair and Square Technique to Blend Fiction into Your Nonfiction
Q & A s with a Fellow Writer
(every fourth Monday of the month):
Q & A with Ginger Eager on Her Debut Novel The Nature of Remains
Q & A with Art Taylor on The Boy Detective & The Summer of 74 and Other Tales of Suspense
Q & A with Ellen Prentiss Campbell on Writing Fiction and Her Latest Collection, Known by Heart
Other Selected Posts
From the Archives: A Visit to Las Pozas, Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
In Memorium: William C. Gruben and his “Animals in the Arts in Texas”
WRITING WORKSHOP
In order to concentrate on writing my book I’ve taken a break from teaching this year, but I will be offering a one-hour workshop on poetic techniques for writers of fiction and narrative nonfiction at the Women Writing the West annual conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado this fall. If you’re anywhere in the area, and if your work focuses on anywhere / anything/ anyone in the US west of the Mississippi River, this might be a conference for you to consider. In particular, if you take your writing seriously, and if you’re looking to meet other writers, improve your writing skills, and to learn to pitch your work to agents, editors, and above all, help your book find its readers, I can warmly recommend this conference. I’ve participated twice now (you can read my edited transcript of a talk for the conference held in 2016 in Santa Fe here) and found it well worthwhile.
Saturday, October 17, 2020
9:10-10:10 Poetic Techniques to Power Up– C.M. Mayo
For writers of fiction and narrative nonfiction (whether biography, nature writing, or memoir), award-winning poet and writer C.M. Mayo’s workshop gives you a toolkit of specific poetic techniques you can apply immediately to make your writing more vivid and engaging for your readers. Using handouts, first we’ll cover specificity with reference to the senses, a technique, basic as it may be, that many writers tend to underutilize. Then, in supersonic fashion, we’ll zoom over alliteration; use of imagery; repetition; listing; diction drops and spikes; synesthesia; and crucially, how to work with rhythm and sound to reinforce meaning. The goal is for your writing to take an immediate step up.
Meanwhile, for my students, and anyone else interested in creative writing, I will continue to post on some aspect of craft and/or creative process here at Madam Mayo blog on the second Monday of the month.
> You can always access the archive of Madam Mayo blog workshop posts here.
# # #
CYBERFLANERIE
(INSPIRING, INTERESTING, AND/OR USEFUL GLEANINGS)
Robert Laughlin, Preserver of a Mayan Language, Dies at 85
Rudy Rucker High on Gnarl and Chaos
Richard Cytowic on reading to the rescue (short, important)
Adam Garfinkle on deep literacy (long, thought-provoking)
Paul Graham’s essay on useful essays
Artist Marilee Shapiro who survived five days in the hospital with the covid at age 107— and is still making art
The Zoom thing (oyy) and more on the Zoom thing
Some little-known yet fascinating US history: occultist and independent scholar John Michael Greer’s post from Ecosophia In the Footsteps of High John
An already-oldie but thought-provoking goodie: What was really going on with all that TP (!!)
Tyler Cowan interviews John McWhorter
Kevin Kelly offers a raft of advice, including: “Anything real begins with the fiction of what could be. Imagination is therefore the most potent force in the universe, and a skill you can get better at. It’s the one skill in life that benefits from ignoring what everyone else knows.”
From Robert Giron at Gival Press (back in April, which was Poetry Month):
Take a few minutes away from the trauma of the day and read some poetry. Visit & read the Poetry Month 2020 Special Bilingual (Spanish/English) Edition in ArLiJo Issue No. 135 edited by Luis Alberto Ambroggio. Featuring poets: Lucha Corpi, Raquel Salas Rivera, Naomi Ayala, Orlando Rossardi, Tina Escaja, Daisy Zamora, Isaac Goldemberg, and Luis Alberto Ambroggio. Visit: http://www.ArLiJo.com
#
Stay safe!
#
Primitive Skills guru on “never hurry, never worry”:
#
Just ‘cuz it is so cool:
(Though certainly in English we underutilize clicks, we do use them. Notice how when an American is about to inform you about something, she says, tsk? It’s so quick, it’s easy to miss.)
P.S. I also, very occasionally, send out my newsletter to subscribers via email. If you would like to receive only the emailed newsletter, just zap me an email, I’ll be delighted to add you to my list. If in addition, or instead, you’d like to sign up for the Madam Mayo blog post alerts every Monday via email, just hie on over to the sidebar (or, if you’re on an iPhone, scroll down to the end of this post) for the signup. Welcome!
#
Oscar Wilde in West Point, Honey & Wax in Brooklyn
Notes on Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s The Railway Journey
The StandStand: One Highly Recommended Way
to Keep on Writing While Standing
#
Find out more about
C.M. Mayo’s books, articles, podcasts, and more.
