Sublime

For the uninitiated, I have been hosting a call-in radio show for the last twenty years called The Best Show. While most of the callers are real, Jon and I write and perform funny scripted calls within the body of the show. Jon will dial in as any number of beloved creations, like Philly Boy Roy (a lovable Rocky-loving meathead from Philadelphia) o

Hemingway described his process in similar terms: acquiring rich experiences, then retreating to cogitate and write about them.

Any invention that reduces the fear of writing is up there with air-conditioning and the lightbulb. But, as always, there’s a catch. Nobody told all the new computer writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they’re writing fluently doesn’t mean they’re writing well. That condition was first revealed with the arrival of the wor

You must aim to tantalize, not tease.

the English author V. S. Pritchett, one of the best and most versatile of nonfiction writers. Consider what he squeezes out of a visit to Istanbul:

The lecture’s audience consists of bald solid thick-wristed men over 50 who all look like the kind of guy who rises to CEO a company out of that company’s engineering dept. instead of some fancy MBA program.

That Thomas had worked for the Chronicle since 1976 was easily established, as was the fact that he’d published three brief novels since that date. Out of a sense of delicacy Carleton never mentioned that he owned all three of these, and found them elegant and elliptical, couched in prose that had the cadence of the King James Bible, and concerned