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Posts tagged ‘Coraline’

Jan 26

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Writing advice from a Tasmanian cave spider, or how to get your creative juices flowing

Ok, I lied. This post isn’t really about writing advice from a Tasmanian cave spider—more like life advice.

Hang with me for a moment. You’ll see what I mean.

After taking nearly a year off from writing poetry, I had an idea to kick start 2015 with the goal of writing two to three new poems a week for the month of January. But I wasn’t feeling very inspired. Some pretty heavy stuff was going on in my life, and I felt drained.

Then, a gift arrived in the mail.

My blogging partner Carly sent me The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop, by Diane Lockward (I hadn’t even mentioned my goal to her…scary how we think alike, isn’t it?)

Now, I’m normally NOT a “prompt” person but being the good friend that I am, I felt I should at least flip through the book so I could extend my sincere gratitude to her. (Wink. Wink). Late one night, I dragged the book to bed with me and the strangest thing happened—the pages reached out and grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.

Hands down, best poetry craft and prompt book. Ever. Nine of the ten poems I’ve written so far this month were inspired by the book.

But what does this have to do with a Tasmanian cave spider? Read more

Sep 11

Neil Gaiman reads Coraline aloud with famous authors

Neil Gaiman’s N.Y. Times bestselling novel Coralineis celebrating its 10th anniversary. To read an overview of the novel and learn about all its successes, check out this post by Anne Margaret Daniel in the Huffington Post.

To celebrate the book’s birthday, Gaiman reads aloud the entire novel with a few of his famous friends including, Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket; Cassandra Clare; and R. L. Stein.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

To learn about the benefits of reading your own work aloud, please read my previous post “Editing Techniques to Make Your Prose Sing.”