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One Pill Makes You Larger: Feed Your Head with Book Reviews |
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Written by Administrator
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Monday, 15 October 2012 08:22 |
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By Alice Osborn, 2012 Fall Conference Faculty, "How Book Reviews are the Magic Pill to Elevate Your Writing Career"
 What I love about writing book reviews is that my graduate school degree in English is put to good use. In other words, I can use my analytical, literary skills and love for reading all at the same time. I’ve come across a lot of writers who I know are quite capable of writing book reviews, but many don’t know where to start. They don’t want to throw out their opinions to the world, or they don’t feel they have enough of a literary background to write a worthy review. The workshop I’m teaching at the upcoming Fall Conference, “How Book Reviews Are the Magic Pill to Elevate Your Writing Career,” is a direct result of these conversations.
During our ninety minutes together in this class, I’ll discuss how although each review is subjective, the reviewer always needs to be objective. You’ll also learn how to organize your review, craft that difficult opening line, the ethics of the genre, and time management. Most of all, you’ll learn it’s not all about getting free books!
We’ll also talk about the qualities of a good book reviewer, which are:
- a good command of the language
- knowledge of the genre and its canons
- analysis without jargon
- providing connections and acknowledging patterns
- evaluating the book’s meaning
- honesty/tact
- objectivity
I’d also add that a good reviewer has a strong working knowledge of pop culture, history, film, religion, and political science of the 20th and 21st Century so she can allude and reference when necessary.
Whew, that’s a lot to ask!
No one taught me how to write a review—I decided to use my gut instincts and graduate school training to light my way. I also read a lot of reviews in the Sunday News & Observer and New York Times. I noticed that every reviewer was different and brought her own set of opinions and views to the book. I was determined not to bland anything down. No one wants to read that.
After the Independent Weekly published my essay in their “Front Porch” section, I asked my editor to consider me for writing book reviews. Wish granted! My first reviews for them maybe didn’t have the sophistication and confidence of my more recent reviews, but they weren’t simply recaps. I jotted down page numbers, repeating motifs, and words in the book’s front matter. I bent back pages, wrote “image similar to p. 27” on p. 73, and also wrote comments to myself not meant for anyone else’s eyes, like, “this is crap!” “drivel,” “misspelling here,” “awesome,” “cool,” and “confusing.”
Later, I concentrated my review efforts in the poetry genre. Soon I was able to reference similar classic and contemporary works within the review. I also gave myself permission to have fun with similes, metaphors, and wordplay. My personality was shining through.
Writing reviews are one of the best ways to build your writing portfolio and, if you’re a blogger, help you gain followers who will convert into readers for your other work. Being a reviewer makes you a better writer, not only because of the extensive close reading you’re doing, but also because of your work deconstructing and explaining the author’s craft.
Review writing isn’t for sissies, but neither is your writer’s journey.
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Alice Osborn, M.A, is the author of three books of poetry: After the Steaming Stops, Unfinished Projects, and Right Lane Ends; she is also a manuscript editor, freelance writer, and storyteller. A former Raleigh Charter High School English teacher, Alice has served as a Writer-in-Residence in the United Arts Artists in the Schools program since 2009, and has taught creativity, poetry, memoir, and blogging workshops to Triangle residents for six years. Her work has appeared in Raleigh’s News and Observer, Soundings Review, and in numerous journals and anthologies. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband and two children. Visit her website: www.aliceosborn.com.
Registration for the 2012 North Carolina Writers' Network Fall Conference is open! |
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Last Updated on Monday, 15 October 2012 08:55 |
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North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame Induction Set for October 14 |
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Written by Administrator
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Thursday, 12 July 2012 19:00 |
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 SOUTHERN PINES – Bestselling poet and memoirist Maya Angelou, former state Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer (right), and 18th-Century explorer and naturalist John Lawson will be inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame this fall.
The induction ceremony will be 2:00 pm, Sunday, October 14, at the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities in Southern Pines, where the NCLHOF is housed. The ceremony is free and open to the public.
In addition to the three new inductees, the NCLHOF has launched a new website, www.nclhof.org, with expanded multimedia resources on the fifty North Carolina writers currently enshrined.
Maya Angelou is the Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University, whose faculty she joined in 1982. A celebrated poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist, Angelou is perhaps best known for her 1970 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She read her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at President Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration, and has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Lincoln Medal, three Grammy Awards, and more than thirty honorary degrees.
Dr. Edwin G. Wilson, Provost Emeritus at Wake Forest University, will present Angelou for induction, and accept the induction on her behalf. Poet Jaki Shelton Green, the Triangle’s first Piedmont Laureate, will read Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise” in her honor.
Kathryn Stripling Byer served as North Carolina’s Poet Laureate—the first woman to serve in that role—from 2005 to 2009. She has published six books of poetry, with a seventh due from the Louisiana State University Press this fall, and taught for many years at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. Byer and her work have won the AWP Award, the Roanoke-Chowan Award, the Brockman-Campbell Award, the SIBA Book of the Year Award in poetry, fellowships from the National Endowment for Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council, and the Hanes Award in Poetry from the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Sally Buckner—herself a noted poet, editor, and advocate for North Carolina literature—will present Byer for induction. Bestselling novelist and fellow NCLHOF inductee Lee Smith will read Byer’s poem “Mountain Time.”
 John Lawson came to the Carolina colony in 1700, appointed by the Lords Proprietors to survey the colony’s interior. Setting out from Charleston on December 28, Lawson covered about 550 miles in fifty-nine days, ending his journey near Bath on the Pamlico River. His observations on the topography, flora and fauna, and native peoples were published in England in 1709 with the title A New Voyage to Carolina, considered “the first significant effort to describe the natural history and the natives” of North Carolina and North America, and “a classic of early American literature.” Lawson was also one of the founders of New Bern, and was the first casualty of the 1711 Tuscarora War.
Lawson will be presented for induction by noted nature writer Phillip Manning. Danny Bell, the Program Coordinator for the curriculum in American Indian Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, will read an excerpt from A New Voyage to Carolina. Kay Williams, the executive director of Tryon Palace in New Bern, will accept the induction on Lawson’s behalf.
The NCLHOF was founded in 1996, under the leadership of poet laureate Sam Ragan, and is a program of the North Carolina Writers’ Network. Since 2008, the Network and the Weymouth Center collaborate with the North Carolina Center for the Book, the North Carolina Humanities Council, and the North Carolina Collection of the Wilson Library at UNC-Chapel Hill to produce the induction ceremony and to promote the NCLHOF and North Carolina’s literary heritage. |
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Last Updated on Thursday, 02 August 2012 14:22 |
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White Cross School Blog
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White Cross School
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| The Online Journal of the North Carolina Writers' Network |
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The Network Needs Your Help
If you’re a loyal reader of this blog, then the Network has probably helped you in some definite, demonstrable way: You found an agent or publisher through our Manuscript Mart....
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The One Call You Need to Make
From the North Carolina Center for Non-Profits: Last week, state Senate leaders said their tax reform plan would eliminate your non-profit’s sales tax refunds. Your non-profit also would have to...
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Call to Action for All Members
North Carolina’s senate has proposed a plan to make North Carolina’s sales tax base one of the broadest in the country and “subject nearly all consumer activities and products to...
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Now Available: Echoes Across the Blue Ridge
$16.00 paperback
available in bookstores or online
“Straight from the land of sky. song and story, another dynamic collection--strong and surprising.” --Lee Smith
“Anyone who enjoys Appalachian Literature will be delighted by this excellent anthology, particularly because it introduces the reader to a number of our region’s gifted though lesser-known writers. Bravo!” --Ron Rash
The anthology is dedicated to the memory of our Appalachian ballad poet Byron Herbert Reece
More information here
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Hat's Off!
Hats Off! to Tamra Wilson, who has had an excellent month. First, her short story “December Bride” appears in Marco Polo Arts Magazine. Not only that, but her story "The Blue Hat" took Second Place in the 2013 Charlotte Writers' Club Children's Short Story Contest. |
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