Sunday, March 03, 2013

Weekend Links

I actually have a few minutes this Sunday. This should be fun.

Melissa Wiley at Here in the Bonny Glen did an inspiring post this week How Do You Manage To Read So Many Blogs? She did a follow-up post, Sending Web Content to a Kindle (or Kindle App) for Reading Later that I haven't read yet but want to. If only I could send it to my Kindle. Actually, I think I'm going to send it to Computer Guy. Now that the Saving the Planet & Stuff eBook has published, he has nothing to do.

Because of Melissa's post, I poked around at some blogs I have been visiting only off-and-on recently. As a result, I learned that Leila at Bookshelves of Doom is doing an Elizabeth Peters week.

Another Melissa, Melissa Stewart, did a post on the surge of interest in narrative nonfiction for children. Does Story Appeal to Everyone? raises the question of whether presenting fact in a narrative/story frame is something that adult children's lit gatekeepers like more than child readers do.

Narrative nonfiction is a term for creative nonfiction. I actually like narrative nonfiction better for two reasons. 1. It describes the writing. A narrative follows a storyline. You know what narrative nonfiction does because it is called narrative nonfiction. The term creative nonfiction doesn't tell me as much. 2. The creative in creative nonfiction is confusing for some people, leading them to believe it's acceptable to create material the way a fiction writer would because a fiction writer is creative and creative writing is about making things up, right? This type of nonfiction isn't about making things up; it's about how you organize the factual things you've accumulated through research.

And while we're on the subject of narrative nonfiction, Nieman Storyboard has a piece on short-form nonfiction narratives in journalism.

Finally, this week we have 31 Things We Learned From Laura Ingalls Wilder. I wish this had had a subtitle like "31 useful things for the twenty-first century."

2 comments:

Unknown said...

When you read my follow-up, you might be amused to see that you make a cameo appearance in it!

Gail Gauthier said...

Now I'll get to it sooner rather than later.