Armchair travelers, people who like to read biographies, the curious, the interested . . . A Sense of Place by Michael Shapiro is for you. Michael explores travel writers’ views about the craft of writing, the world, and home, wherever that may be. Michael travels the globe, engaging in intimate conversations with these authors in their homes. Isabel Allende in San Rafael, California Bill Bryson in Hanover, New Hampshire Tim Cahill in Livingston, Montana Arthur Frommer in New York City Jeff Greenwald in Oakland, California Pico Iyer in Santa Barbara, California Peter Matthiessen in Sagaponack, New York Frances Mayes in Cortona, Italy Tom Miller in Tucson, Arizona Jan Morris in Llanystumdwy, Wales Eric Newby in Guildford, England Brad Newsham in Oakland, California Redmond O’Hanlon in Oxford, England Jonathan Raban in Seattle, Washington Rick Steves in Edmonds, Washington Paul Theroux in Oahu, Hawaii Sara Wheeler in London, England Simon Winchester in Great…
Tag: Michael Shapiro
The Creative Spark
Isn’t this a beautiful cover? The Creative Spark: How musicians, writers, explorers, and other artists found their inner fire and followed their dreams by Michael Shapiro. People are talking about The Creative Spark Michael has interviewed some of the world’s most creative minds, bringing sparks of joy, enlightenment, and entertainment into our lives. It makes sense for the next endeavor for Michael to publish these extraordinary interviews in a book. After reading the Lucinda Williams chapter, Solas House publisher James O’Reilly “went straight to listen to her album, Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone. I must have been living under a rock to not know her. I love her voice and music and intensity. This book is all about meeting people you’ll love who you never knew, or who you thought you knew but didn’t.” “I’ve been asking myself, why did I let music drift out of my life?…
Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch by Constance Hale
Guest Book Reviewer Kathy Myers nails a review of Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing. If a mousy English teacher yanked the hairpins out of her tight bun, slammed down a couple of boiler makers, and shimmied around the dance floor at a biker bar, she could blame it on the copy of “Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch” tucked in her Borders Book bag. Constance Hale stimulates writers to accentuate and resuscitate their sentences with better verbs—the “little despots” that dictate what happens in the sentence. But it’s not just about verbs; it’s about better writing. It’s about smashing bad habits, and flirting with new ones. It’s about the rich history of our mutt of a mother tongue, and appreciation of its ongoing evolution. And because “the antidote to anxiety is mastery” each chapter includes prompts to “try, do, write, and play”, and thus makes this a worthy…
Sin and Syntax: How To Craft Wicked Good Prose by Constance Hale
Kathy Myers sits in the Book Reviewer seat today. Thank you, Kathy, for an excellent review of Sin and Syntax: How To Craft Wicked Good Prose by Constance Hale. A book with “sin” and “wicked” in the title is more apropos of a vampire romance, but Constance Hale excites the reader with her own personal passion for words— words in all their glory. She tackles topics that for centuries have induced narcolepsy among students such as: sentence structure, grammar, misplaced modifiers, or word choices, making them stimulating, arousing and well…downright sexy. She puts the sin in syntax indeed. Her chapters are organized like a Catholic autopsy: bones, flesh, cardinal sins, carnal pleasures, and a catechism. Her wealth of knowledge is shared with wit and brevity. Why have your character go into a “house,” when they can enter a bungalow, A Frame, adobe, Victorian, or a rancher? Why “walk” when they…
A roundup of freelance writing tips from Guest Blogger Michael Shapiro
Guest Blogger and expert travel writer Michael Shapiro reveals his success with freelance writing. Every June, Michael Shapiro marks the anniversary of leaving his full-time job at CNET in SF. It’s been 15 years with lots of highs and lows, and he’s never regretted the decision to walk away from the rigidity of full-time work and hang his virtual shingle. Here are some tips that have helped him succeed in the world of freelance writing, especially travel writing. Making a Living as a Freelance Writer It’s not just an adventure, it’s a job: Travel writing can be romantic, but recognize it’s a job — don’t start out writing grand epiphanies about your summer vacation. Focus on service (consumer or advice) pieces, such as a story on five little-known museums in New York. You don’t have to be a superb writer to be a competent reporter. By providing service pieces, you…