“The past,” Phillip Lopate says, “is an Aladdin’s lamp we never tire of rubbing.” Guest Blogger Norma Watkins studied with Phillip Lopate. The following is what she gleaned working with the master of the personal essay. The hallmark of personal essay and memoir is its intimacy. [Links below on memoir writing.] In a personal essay, the writer seems to be speaking directly into the reader’s ear, confiding everything from gossip to wisdom: thoughts, memories, desires, complaints, whimsies. The core of this kind of writing is the understanding that there is a certain unity to human experience. As Montaigne put it, “Every man has within himself the entire human condition.” This kind of informal writing, whether a short piece or a book of memoir, is characterized by: self-revelation individual tastes and experiences a confidential manner humor a graceful style rambling structure unconventionality novelty of theme freshness of form freedom from stiffness…
Tag: Mendocino Coast Writers Conference
Ingram Spark? Bookbaby? CreateSpace?
Guest Blogger Shirin Bridges sheds light on Ingram Spark, BookBaby, and CreateSpace. The following is an excerpt from Shirin Bridges’ June 24, 2016 blog post on Goose Tracks. I was recently asked for the pros and cons of Ingram Spark vs. BookBaby. The answer, I quickly realized, is a complex one, greatly dependent on the particular publishing goals for the book. I also thought that in any decision tree, Amazon’s CreateSpace would have to rate a mention. So what follows is my attempt to delineate the decision tree I would adopt in choosing between these three services . . . [Note from Marlene: For the full post, please go to Shirin’s informative blog, Goose Tracks]. How important are bookstores to your sales strategy? If NOT VERY, skip to 4. If VERY, keep reading. Self-published authors will find it almost impossible to get wide distribution in bookstores. Period. The reasons are legion but boil down to two words: workload and risk. Most self-published authors…