March 15, 2010

To Self Pub, to POD, or to Not Self Pub or Not POD -..That is the Debate

To Self Pub, to POD, or to Not Self Pub or Not POD -..That is the Debate

My Guest Today is here for a DEBATE.  PA Brown’s Bio is at the END of this blog.

The question we are taking up today has complicated answers.  It involves writers deciding to self publish and/or working with a POD [...]

March 14, 2010

Interview by Sara Bond of UCLA Extension Writers Program with Instructor Tantra Bensko about Experimental Fiction

TB: Experimental Fiction is Literary, with a goal towards an artistic presentation of the subject in a unique way. And in any innovative literature, especially the more experimental it is, a big part of the “subject” actually IS the presentation. The WAY it is conveyed can be exciting, and the structure itself, for example, can imply something about the nature of reality, communication, the self, so many things. . . [...]

March 14, 2010

Thank you, Sally

 

My sister Sally is a few years older (and a few eons wiser) than me, and she was off and married to the man of her dreams when I was only five.

I used to go round a lot to Sally and Philip’s house – a habit I haven’t particularly broken although I have lived in [...]

March 14, 2010

Background to Monday Afternoon

Stephen Sangirardi
Bard715@aol.com
Background to Monday Afternoon
 
   Asked to write some information about how I came to write my novel, I must be very frank about three things. Two years ago, my friend and the Editor of Wild Leaf Press, Bill Hunter, gave me some advice about writing a novel. Bill said that what sells today in [...]

March 14, 2010

Simmering a Book in a Year w/setbacks & backdrops & Dialoguing It

Setbacks can end forward progress on a writing project but it is not the mistakes and missteps that define us but how we react to them; overcoming the loss of 75 pages is the topic of the ongoing Cook a Book in a Year gauntlet I have thrown down at http://ning.it/aRjND4
Also the contest to NAME [...]

March 8, 2010

Steve Sangirardi’s novel Monday Afternoon published by Night Reading

 Hi—this is Steve Sangirardi, and I’ll try to be as terse as possible. When I retired from Clarke last year, I felt a guilty void that I converted into writing. Miraculously, I found a publisher for my novel, Monday Afternoon: Night Reading, located in the UK. Night Reading is featured on its website and has [...]

March 4, 2010

An African Love Story: When Love came calling (Part One)

She noticed him staring at her through the window. Uncomfortably, she shifted. First on one foot, then the other, as she dizzyingly became aware of his intense scrutiny. Boss lady was coming any time soon and if she found this stranger staring at her through her precious shop windows, she would throw a fit. Suddenly [...]

February 28, 2010

SWI – Total List of Countries visiting SWI over the last 60 days

Visits

11,511

% of Site Total: 100.00%

Pages/Visit
The average number of pages viewed during a visit to your site. Repeated views of a single page are counted.

Pages/Visit

2.34

Site Avg: 2.34 (0.00%)

Avg. Time on Site
The average duration of a visit to your site.

Avg. Time on Site

00:03:09

Site Avg: 00:03:09 (0.00%)

% New Visits
The percentage of visits by [...]

February 28, 2010

SWI – Top 500 Page Views over the last 60 days

Pageviews

26,981

% of Site Total: 100.00%

Unique Pageviews
The number of visits during which one or more of these pages was viewed.

Unique Pageviews

18,950

% of Site Total: 100.00%

Avg. Time on Page
The average amount of time visitors spent viewing this set of pages or page.

Avg. Time on Page [...]

February 25, 2010

An Invitation to Writers

We first put our site on the Internet in December 2008 – since then we have had over 110,000 viewers visit our site.  We extend an invitation to all writers to become contributors.  If you are interested please reply to SpeakWithoutInterruption@gmail.com and let us know the type of writings you [...]

February 25, 2010

The World Turned Upside Down

I don’t want to say that I live in a bizarre world but you see I reside in a town called Topsy Turvy in the country of Before. My name is Todd and I live on a small farm with my parents and my grandfather. I go to school and am proud to be at [...]

February 24, 2010

Universal Suffering

Stephen Sangirardi    Universal Suffering     Bard715@aol.com
 
   Last night for the tenth time I watched Schindler’s List, arguably the most important film ever made. There is that incredibly poignant scene at the end when ‘Herr Direktor,’ played by Liam Neeson, is presented the ring of life with the inscription from the Talmud etched inside. “He who saves [...]

February 14, 2010

Julia & Julia Type Journal for Cooking up a Gritty Suspense or Mystery Novel by Robert W. Walker

Julia & Julia Type Journal for Cooking up a Gritty Suspense or Mystery Novel by Robert W. Walker

At Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, yes, you can follow me as I blog on the progress and success or failure of putting together my 50th novel. Without a contract, written on speculation only in my head [...]

February 11, 2010

Where Do the Words Go When a Writer Dies?

Yesterday as I took advantage of the weather and watched movies while the snow piled up outside I received a call that one of the more senior members of the Harlem Writers Guild had died. It was a shock because we assumed he didn’t make the last meeting because he usually went dancing the first [...]

February 11, 2010

The SWI Question of the Day (2-11-10)

Complete this sentence – If I did not have the freedom to write I would…………

We welcome your thoughts and comments.

February 4, 2010

What is a Writer?

What is a Writer?  Is is someone who has been trained as one or someone who believes they are one?  Is is someone who uses big words and knows proper grammar or is it someone who writes the way they feel with spelling and grammatical errors?  Is it someone who has published books, articles, and [...]

February 4, 2010

Experimental Fiction Writing ---Classes Online Are Now Available

Serious literary writing from the time Modernism came onto the scene with WW1 has been primarily made up of shattering of narrative elements. Time itself is broken and collaged, structure is collapsed, cause and effect can go out the window, the novel can parody itself suddenly, dialogue can be absurdist, and characters can become flattened so we don’t see them as warm humans that we care about in a personal sense at all, or they can be impossible and contradictory, and the whole novel can be self-reflexive, playing on the artifice. The world being perceived as so shattered and irrational now, literary writers can feel it inaccurate to portray it as being unified, going along in a reliable, cohesive manner full of [...]

February 4, 2010

The SWI Question of the Day (2-4-10)

What is the future of print media and literature?  What is the future of this type of printed material that you can hold in your hand and physically turn the pages?

We welcome your thoughts and comments.

February 2, 2010

My “Extreme Interest” in having Chinese Writers contribute to our SWI Site

I have had both a personal, and business, relationship with China – and its people – since 2003.  I have written articles – posted to our site – regarding China and have made it no secret regarding my extreme interest in having contributors, from China, post their articles to our site.  I am excited that [...]

February 1, 2010

The attack of the alien multi-media book snatchers

 

It is hard to believe sitting here today, but in 2-3 years’ time paper books simply won’t exist.

I love paper books. Specifically, I love paperbacks. As they say about Toblerone, never eat a sweet that hurts you – so I am not so fond of hardbacks as being uncomfortable and often [...]

February 1, 2010

February 2010 (Content by Title – Previous 12 Months)

Below are the results – from Google Analytics – for our SWI site showing the Top 200 pages visited over the past 12 months:

Pageviews

128,896

% of Site Total:

100.00%

Unique Pageviews
The number of visits during which one or more of these pages was viewed.

Unique Pageviews

90,609

% of Site Total: 100.00%

Avg. Time on Page
The average amount of time visitors spent [...]

February 1, 2010

Book clubs – change literary history

We have just set up a book readers’ and writers’ site to bring everyone together to discuss books.

Our slogan is “Every book must be published” and, with developments in print-on-demand and e-tablets (Apple, Kindle etc.), they will be.

This site – Night Reading – was conceived last Thursday and kicked off last Friday. We now have [...]

January 30, 2010

Night Reading - Day 1 report

With huge thanks to Bob Grant of SWI for publicising our new venture to help writers find their audiences, and vice-versa, here is our report on the first day.

Bruce Essar and I (both SWI contributors) took the concept of Night Reading from conception to execution in a few hours, and the first day has proven [...]

January 29, 2010

Introducing 'Night Reading'

SWI is pleased to announce ‘Night Reading’ – a publishing opportunity for not only our own SWI contributors but to all writers who are interested in getting their works published.  Below is this initial announcement from our contributors Tim Roux and Bruce Essar:

Bruce Essar and I invite you to join our new Ning site – [...]

January 26, 2010

'Monday Afternoon' by Steve Sangirardi

Angelo Aiello is a New York, Italian Roman Catholic – very New York, very Italian and more Roman Catholic than makes any pragmatic sense nowadays.

He has a wife whom he dreads, a thirteen year old daughter whom he reciprocally adores, and a vengeful, jealous God that he fears (but we know all about that one [...]

January 16, 2010

Stuart Aken Reviews Murder at Oakwood Grange by Avril Field-Taylor

Sherlock Holmes fans will love this. Written in the style of Conan Doyle, so well that the reader is not aware it isn’t one of his stories, the novel follows Sherlock and Doctor Watson as they take on a seemingly simple case of murder. However, it quickly becomes clear that this is anything but straightforward.

Doctor [...]

January 14, 2010

Stuart Aken’s Review of Seer’s Moon by Karen Wolfe

Seer’s Moon is Karen Wolfe’s second fantasy novel centring on the unusual activities of Granny Beamish and her cronies. With its mixture of comic style and supernatural content, the book had me smiling, chuckling and laughing out loud; much to the consternation of my fellow travellers. The story, or at least the main thread, follows [...]

December 24, 2009

SpeakWithoutInterruption – Review of our First Year

It has been a little over a year since our Online Magazine was first operational.  Over that period we have had almost 2,000 posts from over 85 writers who have made at least one contribution.  We have had over 85,000 viewers visit our site in the same time period.  We have lost writers – and [...]

December 18, 2009

An Invitation to All Writers “Outside” the USA

Our Online Magazine was started in December 2008.  Since then we have had visitors to our site that represent 165 countries.  Although we have a few contributing writers – outside the U.S. – we “very much” want more.  Many, many, many more!  If you come to our site from outside the USA – and would like to become a contributor [...]

December 17, 2009

The shock of the new

I know that many writers decry the state of the publishing industry, but for me it is in better health than it has ever been.

As a writer you have a choice:

• do you want to produce erudite work which addresses a relatively small audience of cognoscenti?

or

• do you want to make a stack of money writing what [...]

December 16, 2009

Review of 'Seers' by Karen Wolfe

Ever since the publication of ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’, I have been troubled by a niggling concern. It doesn’t keep me awake at night but I do regularly accost strangers and ask them “Whatever happened to Harry Potter’s grandparents?”.

Harry Potter was a baby when his parents were killed. His parents look like they were in their [...]

December 14, 2009

Is this the new Dan Brown or just the Second Coming?

Scott Pack, the Head Buyer of Waterstones, once famously boomed “Who on earth could care less what Tim Adams of The Observer thinks about anything?”, his point being that upmarket critical opinion was no indicator of sales potential except perhaps by way of negative correlation (‘the more the praise, the less the sales’). No, what Scott was [...]

December 12, 2009

Reviewers - The Bigger, The Bagger and The Bugger

I have read enough reviews in my time, and even written enough, to come up with a Saturday morning categorisation of the art of reviewing. You, no doubt, can identify some far more insightful and incisive categories of your own, in which case feel free to do so below or in a responding article.

The tragedy [...]

December 9, 2009

WHAT is so MYSTERIOUS about VOICE & Point of View in the Novel?

WHAT is so MYSTERIOUS about VOICE & Point of View in the Novel?
                                 by Robert W. Walker
 
 
I cannot tell you the number of times I have read someone saying that Voice is the most mysterious element of the writing process, and that it is not teachable but so nebulous as t be as fleeting as [...]

December 9, 2009

Writers Make the World Go Round

Writers Make the World Go Round

by Bob Grant

Writers make the world go round,

In page and print they can be found.

Some write of horror – some write of fame,

Some write of truth – some write of blame.

Some write for fun – some write for money,

Some write of sad – some write of funny.

Some write of self [...]

December 9, 2009

How to get lots of good reviews!

You know how you pick up a bestseller and the first few pages are packed with good reviews.

As a reader I think “Cannot be a bad book, then,” although as it is a bestseller you can never be too sure.

As a writer I think “How the hell did they achieve that logistically?”

Not wishing to boast [...]

November 13, 2009

Happy FU Day!

“Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other [...]

November 11, 2009

Pushkin

Stephen Sangirardi   Bard715@aol.com
Pushkin
 
   It was not hard to figure out why he was dying: if you lived by the Byron, you died by the Byron. Being fatally wounded in the frigid St. Petersburg snow was the extra touch a poet needed to make the day complete. And a duel over an essentially worthless woman, fueled [...]

November 8, 2009

The Disappearance of Pedro Gomez

He met him on the third day of the second week after he opened his psychology practice on Rio Mississippi Street in mid-January, 1973 when his receptionist, Luisa Mercedes Rodriguez opened his office door, came in, closed it and said:

“Doctor Manning, he is here!”

“Who is ‘he,’ Luisa?” glancing down at his appointment book [...]

November 7, 2009

Raising the Dead Manuscript from Its Grave: Part 1

Raising the Dead Manuscript from Its Grave:  Part 1
by  Robert W. Walker
 
I published myself after a lifetime of eschewing any sort of vanity press. And I did it using a “dead” manuscript about a “dead” subject filled with “dead” historical characters in a “dead” time period which one editor, a true pro, said of: “It [...]

November 3, 2009

Books where People with Developmental Disability are not Villains

Minette Coleman forwarded this to me because she felt writers need to see what other writers are doing, or how they take the job they have been given and turn it into a story.

Here’s a mystery for you. Why aren’t there more books where people with developmental disabilities are not villains? Not special. Just regular [...]

October 14, 2009

The three faces of Steve, or Eve

Stephen Sangirardi 
Bard715@aol.com
The three faces of Steve, or Eve
 
    Do you think Chaucer was a great listener? The great writer must be an intense listener and observer. He listens, uses his empathy, and imagines what it must be like to be the person he is audience to—the wife who has lost her husband to another woman [...]

October 10, 2009

Chicken or Egg, Plot or Character – Which Comes First?

Chicken or Egg, Plot or Character – Which Comes First?

                                      by Robert W. Walker w/help from 4 Pen Names

 

 

I am not a sick person or a schizophrenic; I simply have [...]

October 10, 2009

Intermingling of Romance and Mystery – an excerpt from Children of Salem

Intermingling of Romance and Mystery – an excerpt from Children of Salem
                                                   – by Robert W. Walker

 

I want to discuss the importance of making a mystery well-rounded by having a strong romantic thread running throughout, and conversely a well-rounded romance novel ought to have [...]

October 7, 2009

East meets West at the Ubud Writers Festival

Bali’s magic infuses one of the world’s top literary [...]

October 1, 2009

Tally: Youth & Age

But by God, two people had met in the maelstrom, by the fragile thread of human involvement, and intuitively (shall I imagine it?) become one.

I acknowledge the contribution of Paul Johnston whose letters, writings and ideas appear in this book in the form of actual excerpts, and in a form somewhat [...]

October 1, 2009

Life imitates Hong Kong On Air

On a busy news day, CNN took two hours to wet kiss China’s rulers. [...]

September 28, 2009

The Burden of Faith.

KADARA, IN THE early 1940s was a small town in the central part of Nigeria. With its serene projection, a first-time visitor could be tempted to think of Kadara as a ghost town, bereft of human habitation. The growing number of the town’s educated class had dumped her, like an [...]

September 27, 2009

Kindness: A Budding

Tim Roux recently put out a open invitation for SWI writer’s to offer true stories of their first sexual experiences. Although at first I was disinclined to respond, I’ve apparently changed my mind. Here is my contribution:

Kindness: A Budding

If I can trust my memory (and experience advises a degree of caution here), my first sexual [...]

September 25, 2009

Intro to ‘…. at last!’ – a compilation of our SWI hum-um-yum experiences

This is a proposal for an intro to the SWI book we are compiling - the first of many we hope. Please comment, and not just about Prentiss ….

Introduction to ‘…. at last!’

I have a thing about sex, and maybe not the same thing as you have.

I know that intellectualising about sex is about [...]

September 21, 2009

Join me join the fray

 Join me join the fray–
 
 
Stephen Sangirardi Gethsemane Bard715@aol.com
 
   He looked at his watch and wondered if they were really coming. For this moment he had absconded into the night three years ago, preferring the company of terebinths and cenobites to wife and child. Three years ago in Nazareth: her hands akimbo, barring the door, swearing [...]

September 20, 2009

‘Death of a Salesman’

‘Death of a Salesman‘

Stephen Sangirardi Bard715@aol.com
: Biff’s “discovery” up in Boston
 
   There are two schools of thought concerning Biff’s “discovery” up in Boston. Some readers believe that Willy Loman indeed kills what he loves the most when Willy is caught by Biff in the hotel room with his mistress. Devastated by his discovery, Biff not [...]

September 20, 2009

A Commentary on Shakespeare’s ‘Richard III’

A Commentary on Shakespeare’s ‘Richard III’

Stephen Sangirardi Bard715@aol.com
 
    I recently rediscovered Shakespeare’s Richard III in ‘Henry VI, Part 3’ (3.2 134-195). In this soliloquy, which occurs well before he kills unsuspecting Henry and is called the Duke of Gloucester, we clearly see the seeds of his murderous intent, as he invaginates himself in self-pity and [...]

September 19, 2009

Hamlet’s Oedipal Complex

Hamlet’s Oedipal Complex

Stephen Sangirardi Bard715@aol.com  
   Every “school” or discipline in the world seems to have a theory for Hamlet’s procrastination as to why he can’t kill Claudius. Is Hamlet a coward, an excessive doer rather than thinker, a refined religious man who finds murder abhorrent, ad infinitum? (Even the Circuit City people have their [...]

September 18, 2009

Recovery

Recovery

Stephen Sangirardi Bard715@aol.com                            
 
    He found himself in a dither of anxiety when he could not feel his wallet in his back pocket; positively cringed at the thought of his American Express card falling into the hands of some interloper. It was all the more reason for his nasty reply to his daughter in Applebee’s when [...]

September 18, 2009

In Printed Form or Not?

As stated in SWI Roots http://www.speakwithoutinterruption.com/site/swi-roots/  I have no credentials or experience to have started our Speak Without Interruption Online Magazine.  I just had an idea – and with the tremendous help of my Son-in-law plus the writers who took a chance on an unknown site – we are experiencing an ever increasing audience and [...]

September 17, 2009

The Decimation of a People’s Culture

Soon, the contradictions of the strangers began to manifest. The missionaries contemptuously referred to the traditional priests as evil witch doctors while calling themselves Men of God. Every aspect of the golden rules and moral regulations as contained in the Yoruba culture were summarily declared as superstitious even as the missionaries imposed their own brand of superstitions. Their superstitions started with:
Thou shall not… [...]

September 17, 2009

Final Thoughts on Writing and Writers from John Joss

Characteristics of professional writers

  

All generalizations are false, a paradox. Any SWI reader who aspires to writing as a career should know what it will be like and what personal characteristics and behavior work. This applies in every career and profession—education, focus [...]

September 17, 2009

Does Speak Without Interruption have a Niche?

Does Speak Without Interruption have a Niche?

 

By Bob Grant

 

I have been told that our site will be more successful if we can find a niche.  I don’t know if we [...]

September 17, 2009

Is Dan Brown Lucky, Good, or Both?

While watching morning news today I hear that Dan Brown’s new book sold a million copies – or so – in its first day out.  I have read all of Dan’s books – among many other books – and I am not really certain whether it is his talent, or his luck, that places him in the [...]

September 16, 2009

More Thoughts on Writing from John Joss

HANDY TOOLS FOR EVERY WRITER

 

These core activities and attitudes—think of them as tools—are essential to writers with basic writing skills who want to succeed in a trade with few, if any, shortcuts:

 

September 16, 2009

The greatest writer

Everyone has someone in mind for this noble title, or perhaps they have too many, and can’t choose.  Well, let me put forward a name to you, and possibly expand your mind a little as to the worth and possibilities of writing.  I bet you know him.  After all, publishing over 60 books, selling 220 [...]

September 15, 2009

Thoughts on Writing from John Joss

“No man but a blockhead wrote except for money.” Samuel Johnson was referring to all of us, regardless of gender. Beyond penning Post-it® Notes, shopping lists, family correspondence and ‘duty’ writing, humans with basic writing skills should theoretically be able to write professionally and be paid to do it. In [...]

September 13, 2009

Twitter, Contributor’s Copyrights, and SWI

We take our contributors posts, from SWI, and post them to our Twitter site http://twitter.com/SpeakWithout Sometimes we have to change the titles, slightly, to stay within the 140 character limit on Twitter.  We post a title – and the link address to the site – and all has to be 140 characters or less.  We do receive referral visits, to [...]

September 13, 2009

CONTESTACIÓN A UN RETO

A partir del punzante, humorístico y crítico artículo publicado recientemente en esta SWI por Tim Roux expuse en el mismo el comentario que ahora incluyo aquí a modo de artículo modificado y [...]

September 12, 2009

After-School Sessions with Our Favorite Teachers: Robert W. Walker

The Teacher’s Edition:
After-School Sessions with Our Favorite Teachers: Robert W. Walker
By Ann Charles

 

Hello, everybody. I’ve set out to interview some of my favorite writing teachers and learn more about them as teachers, not just authors.

Today, I’m staying after class to talk with Robert W. Walker.

Robert W. Walker is a graduate of Northwestern University [...]

September 10, 2009

10 Solutions to Top 10 Reasons Your Book was REJECTED

10 Solutions to Top 10 Reasons Your Book was REJECTED

                                                                                     by Robert W. Walker

 

As both a writing professor and an editor with my Knife Services, I see all manner of writing [...]

September 10, 2009

A Linguistic Lesson

 
A Linguistic Lesson— by Stephen  Sangirardi Bard715@aol.com
 
   Before the advent of plumbing, men and women were not pleased defecating on the bowl. They had to use an inconvenient out-house—an interesting kenning, by the way—usually a good walk from the house so that reeking smells did not waft into the window and other, ahem, cracks. I [...]

September 9, 2009

Latin Lives!

Nick Renton is one of our contributors who resides in Australia.  He is researching the possibility of a short book entitled “Latin Lives!”  It is with pleasure that we offer his request, below, for feedback from our viewers.  You can either comment to this post or write to Nick directly at ner@nickrenton.com

I am the [...]

September 5, 2009

Lucid Fiction: Beyond Anti-Stories

First published in Retort Magazine

Lucid Fiction: Beyond Anti-Stories

By Tantra Bensko

flameflower@runbox.com

September 3, 2009

How Many Books to Order Up

When you are ready to publish your book, how many copies should you order? The numbers may surprise [...]

August 18, 2009

Seamus—Irish Musings—Fun Part of Writing

Book signings. Absolutely love them. Not the tepid white wine of some vintage in the plastic glass with the runny cheese on a paper plate. Nope. It’s when I get to meet the real reason I [...]

August 18, 2009

Horror Writing

How to write horror. One persons way of writing. [...]

August 17, 2009

Bright Shiny Morning–a meditation on fame

Bright Shiny Morning–a meditation on fame

by Bill Hazelgrove

James Frey. Isn’t that the guy who duped Oprah. Yep. That’s him. Just read his latest book Bright Shiny Morning. It is about LA. Very interesting writer. Sort of man who skates very fast on thin ice. Not dishing the novel but I see why A Million Tiny [...]

August 17, 2009

People are just People

Although not a widely traveled person – in my 63 years I have been to countries in Europe, Asia, North American and the Caribbean.  I have been a school teacher, in the Army, in the corporate world, and an independent businessman.  No matter where I travel, or with whom I meet, I have found that People [...]

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