Poets & Writers has debuted a new social media column, and I've written the first installment, a very basic primer on Twitter.
Lately, for work, I've been doing lots of one-time strategic consultations, during which I help writers focus on what to do now, and what to do next. People often feel overwhelmed, and my approach is always, keep it natural, focus on integrity, and figure out how to best tell your story, and, most especially, instead of what, tell me why. Here's who's been in the mix:
Tyler McMahon, How the Mistakes Were Made (@tylermcmahon): DC native pens first novel about a stratopheric rise, and fall for an early '90s indie band, also set in Seattle. Surfs in Honolulu, contributes to the Nervous Breakdown.
Jafari Sinclaire Allen, ¡Venceremos?: The Erotics of Black Self-making in Cuba (@JafariAllen): Yale prof documents hidden lives and gains access to a world most could never visit.
Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Mule and Pear: Poet recently featured in O has a new book inspired by the female characters of Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison.
Ann Dallman, Sam English: the Life, Work and Times of an Artist: Gorgeous and intimate overview of a key contemporary American Indian painter with a powerful message centering on social justice and renewal through recovery.
Anne Calcagno, Love Like a Dog: Lives are changed forever when a father and son take in a foster pit bull. Set in present-day Chicago.
Lome Aseron (@lomeaseron): Writing honestly about fatherhood with a positive message, and a spiritual lift. See his Colorlines essay on parenting and pop culture, "Sesame Street Got It Right on Race."
Tara Betts (@tarabetts): Poet and youth educator working on a coming-of-age memoir set in an American small town on the cusp of transformative change.
Marvin K. White (@marvinkwhite): Two collections coming from Redbone Press... Status, "a pocket book of pithy anecdotes, sayings, how-to's and poems culled from my Facebook statuses," and Our Name Be Witness, "a conversation between women, rooted in the "motherwit" & "mothertongue" I grew up in."
Nancy K. Miller, What They Saved: Pieces of a Jewish Past (@nancykmiller): A New Yorker's midlife reckoning takes on the fears and desires of a generation as she unlocks the secrets of her ancestors' flight from Eastern Europe to the Lower East Side.
Elizabeth Barker & Laura Jane Faulds, Let It Be Beautiful (@letitbebeautifu): A tandem collection of coming-of-age stories interwoven with an abiding love for the Fab Four, from two popular fashion bloggers and young women writers on the verge.
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