Author Philip Roth, now nearly 85 and retired from writing, has given an interview to New York Times journalist Charles McGrath, and it is fascinating. Roth talks about what it was like to be a writer: Exhilaration and groaning. Frustration and freedom. Inspiration and uncertainty. Abundance and emptiness. Blazing forth and muddling through. The day-by-day • Read More »
Archives: reading
New theories on why we can’t – or don’t – read
January 11, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: journalism, writers, writing.
Scientists and scholars are taking a closer look at that question these days and are coming up with some interesting, and occasionally surprising, answers.
Philip Yancey on reading and building a ‘fortress of habits’
August 6, 2017 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: writers, writing.Read. Think. Meditate/Pray. Listen. Who among us does enough of these vital activities? Who has the time? Who has the power to turn away from our Facebook feeds, tweets and texts, television ads, sidebars and come-ons — even our Distractor-in-Chief — to do the things we know would nourish us emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually? Religious • Read More »
Author Gene Doucette offers a lucid account of the ‘collective insanity of the publishing industry’
March 2, 2016 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: self publishing.
Fantasy Author Gene Doucette has posted one of the clearest and most lucid account of the “collective insanity” of the publishing industry to date. (Source: The collective insanity of the publishing industry – Gene Doucette) Traditional publishers are desperately fighting to maintain an economic model that in the world of ebooks, digital access and independent • Read More »
Reading on the web – and writing for it
June 28, 2013 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: Home, writing.Jakob Nielsen and his group analyzed 1.5 million eye-tracking fixations, and they found that users focus in on sentences and paragraphs where they can get the information they want.