I write this from my parents’ retirement home near Chapel Hill, NC, where I’ve come to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. They live along a fairway in a gated golf community several miles from the quaint downtown area, […]
Tag: Writing
Just to clarify, I’m not a psychology major.
With finals, final papers and grad school application deadlines upon us, this just seemed appropriate! So far I have had people stand me up for meetings because they were immersed in their writing, received […]
What are YOU Doing Tomorrow Night?
Tomorrow night’s Riggio Honors Program: Writing and Democracy student reading is the last chance this fall to hear the words being written by your peers. Over the last couple of years within the Riggio program, […]
A Reader’s Question
I received a semi-anonymous email last week with a plea for advice regarding writer’s block. In lieu of a traditional post this week, I thought I would share my exchange with the writer with you, our readers.
12thstreetonline is meant to be a forum for us to explore writing both personally and professionally, so I hope you guys chime in with advice for our friend in need, and perhaps pitch some queries of your own in regards to your own writing these days.
Dear Anna,
I’m having a severe case of writer’s block. I can’t work on my play, my fiction workshop stuff, anything, and I was wondering if you had any tips? It’s seriously getting to me and I don’t know what to do. Help!
Choices, Choices
Zoë’s and Anna’s thoughtful comments about the process of writing last week prompted me to think about how we choose what to write about, and how we go about writing it. Do you tend to […]
I’m Not Going To Write You A Love Song
Or write him a song if you are so inclined. 12th Street got an interesting email this morning and we wanted to pass it along to you, our audience. We encourage you to speak you […]
Really? No shortcut?
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.” […]
Bardology and Bicycle Sex: An Interview with John Reed
John Reed has attracted his fair share of controversy. His novel Snowball’s Chance, in which Snowball brings capitalism back to Orwell’s Animal Farm, generated criticism—and praise—from the right and left alike. His latest book, All the World’s a Grave (ATWAG), a pastiche of the lines from five of Shakespeare’s plays, is just as contentious. The subtitle “A New Play by William Shakespeare” says it all: Prince Hamlet goes to war for the daughter of King Lear, Juliet. When Hamlet returns he discovers that his mother has murdered his father, and married Macbeth. Visited by his father’s ghost, and goaded by the opportunistic Lieutenant Iago, Hamlet is driven mad by the belief that Juliet is having an affair with General Romeo.
12th Street: It has been said that we Brits are gluttons for punishment. After the reception your book Snowball’s Chance received from the Orwell estate, was it a natural progression to take on, as George Bernard Shaw quipped, “Bardolatry?”
JR: Hmm, I didn’t think about it like that. Maybe I do have it in for the Brits.
12th Street: Thank you. Was personal enjoyment one of your influences when deciding to take this project on, or was it something else?
JR: Oh, sure, I had a blast. I feel, on some level, that writers just do whatever they want and make up reasons later. That’s why some of their rationalizing seems so retarded to other people.
It didn’t hurt that Emily Haynes, my editor, liked the idea. I can’t say that was the single impetus, because I had taken a stab at the project in college—[and] not gotten anywhere—and written the first act in 2003. To be honest, even though Emily liked the idea I was suspicious of it, and I confess that I wasn’t compelled so much as I was consumed. Not an act of will, but an act of abandon.