Archives: writing

Ursula K. Le Guin on Art, Storytelling, and the Power of Language to Transform and Redeem – Brain Pickings

February 9, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: journalism, writing.

Maria Popova, the brain behind BrainPickings.com — a newsletter you should subscribe to — has written another tribute to the ideas of the late science fiction novelist, Ursula Le Guin. Le Guin, as Popova points out, has important things to say about the function of storytelling. Here is part of it: “People wish to be • Read More »

The Digital Reader: 8 Common Phrases that You May Be Getting Wrong; plus a bit from JPROF

January 23, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: journalism, writing.

Nate Hoffelder, the Digital Reader, gives us  – at a quick glance – eight phrases that we might be getting wrong. They’re all packaged neatly in a simple infographic. The phrases: for all intensive purposes (my personal favorite) reign in baited breath sneak peak mute point case and point extract revenge peaked my curiosity Hoffelder leaves • Read More »

Don’t miss this NYT interview with Philip Roth

January 17, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, fiction, writers, writing.

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 »

Author: I didn’t want to resort to self-publishing, but it’s an exhilarating change

February 24, 2016 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, editing, writers, writing.

Louise Walters: My debut novel did very well with conventional publishers, but they weren’t interested in the ‘difficult second’ – so I’m going it alone Source: I didn’t want to resort to self-publishing, but it’s an exhilarating change Louise Walters describes what it’s like to have a second novel turned down after success with a • Read More »

Writing for the Mass Media now an all-digital offering from Pearson

June 13, 2015 | By Jim Stovall | Comments Off on Writing for the Mass Media now an all-digital offering from Pearson | Filed in: journalism education, textbooks, writing, Writing for the Mass Media.

Writing for the Mass Media, now in its ninth edition and in print since 1985, is now being offered by Pearson, the publisher, in a digital edition that downloads to all formats and devices. This book, which is used as a textbook for courses in about 200 colleges and universities each year, is one of • Read More »

MC 102: Thoughts on accuracy

May 28, 2013 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: writing.

One of the four tenants of media writing is accuracy (the other three: completeness, precision and efficiency), and we say that accuracy is primary. But media professionals don’t always achieve accuracy. And inaccuracy can arise in places where we least expect it.

MC 102 Lecture 3: Writing in the Media Environment

May 28, 2013 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: writing.

Professional writers need to learn what it is to write in the media environment. This “environment” is not just a place — although it is often that, such as a television or newspaper newsroom or the writer’s pool of an advertising agency. But it is also a state of mind, an acculturation that the writer must undergo.

Mark Twain takes aim

May 13, 2013 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: editing.

In a famous 1895 essay, Mark Twain delivered a stinging critique of one of America’s 19th century literary icons, James Fennimore Cooper. Twain was very much a modern writer, advocating active, descriptive verbs and short rather than long words. His essay is worth reading, not necessarily for what it says about Cooper, but for what it says about writing itself.