Square Pegs

Randa, Moorish Girl’s Friday columnist, considers readings from a performance perspective. Or, what about giving the audience a real show? Oh, stop your shuddering — she’s right. You must engage the audience to the best of the ability of your work. Rappers have a persona and an attitude they carry which attracts listeners and devotees. Persona and attitude go a long way: when I look at writers who have a devoted following, they all possess a certain twinkle in their eye: writers like David Sedaris, Sherman Alexie, Sarah Vowell, and Dave Eggers. But if a reading is a form of […]

We don’t know where to start. With the fact that 400 articles at 500 (keyword laden) words each for $1,200 works out to…well, less than one cent a word. If you can crank out four articles an hour, that’s 100 hours of work. But hey, it doesn’t have to be quality writing (except for the part where your name might be on it. . .quite possibly, there’s a reason they suggest writers might want to use a pseudonym. Your work will then be sold to various blogs as ghostwritten content. Okay, knowing that the type of sites who purchase inferior

We’re going to be honest: we had no idea there was such a monster as Good Morning America’s “The Story of My Life” contest. Based on our extensive research (peeking through The Happy Booker’s window), it appears that someone has a story and someone else writes it. In this case, the story in question is written by Tim Wendel (Castro’s Curveball). Though we don’t know Wendel, THB vouches for his chili making and general good citizenship. And writing skills. THB’s site has a link to vote (love, love, love links to vote; would that all democracy be this easy) and

Reader Susan Gable suggested she might be available for a little product placement work (not that she’s selling her soul to the corporate devil, but a girl needs to upgrade her home network every now and then). It’s not like this is a new concept, but we suspect there will be increased opportunities presented to writers as advertisers seek new ways to seduce dollars out of consumers. While patronage with strings has a long tradition in the arts world, we wonder if the proliferation of brand names in the media has already numbed the audience. After all, do you buy

Rap artists are accustomed to name-checking prestige car, clothing and jewellery brands in their lyrics. But if McDonald’s has its way Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z and 50 Cent may soon be giving it up for the humble beefburger. The fast-food giant is reported to be launching a campaign that will offer financial incentives to rap artists who mention its Big Mac burger in their lyrics. McDonald’s will not pay an upfront fee, but intends to pay the artist between $1 and $5 (53p-£2.68) each time a track is played on the radio. It hopes to have several such songs on the

Maybe it’s just that we’re a bit old fashioned, but we think the natural of order of things should be: book, movie, schlocky hit single, director’s cut DVD, unfunny TV series, video game. That is progression at its zenith. Everyone gets a piece of the pie. We are shaking our head over this one: I believe that this industry [gaming] could, eventually, become as powerful as Hollywood, which has long ordered original stories for movies. Just imagine playing a character and then reading all about his or her adventures! Uh right. Video Games to Sell… Books?

As we enter Summer (the season directly after Awards in Southern California), our focus turns from “who are you wearing?” to “why, with so many movies, is there nothing worth watching?” That,, of course, is our problem. Because with the summer release schedule comes the summer lawsuit schedule. Like clockwork, copyright infringement suits tack enormous legal fees on the costs of releasing a motion picture. Again, though we believe heart and soul in the importance of copyright, we continue to find it amazing that every single screenplay for major motion pictures was stolen. We will not comment upon the merits

It happens to everyone, eventually. We thought The Reluctant would make it a bit longer. Alas, it wasn’t to be so. He is lost in his own adventure, or would that be fantasy? We wish him the best of luck and hope he gets the care he needs. After all, when one encounters this challenge in his own adventure, he deserves get well wishes: 9. Sam Tanenhaus bemoans the lack of confrontational writing within your 25-word blurb. Where’s the Wieseltier or the Clive James feel? You have no answer. You meet with Tanenhaus at an upscale restaurant on the west

There are some who believe that Harriet Klausner doesn’t exist*. Couldn’t exist. Nobody could read that fast. Well, nobody with a life. And perhaps that’s Klausner’s secret. Sure that makes those of us who are finding reading time a luxury jealous. While we’ve long maintained that it’s not true that Klausner only gives glowing reviews, the truth is more nuanced (something we only achieve when in the mood): It would be overstating things to suggest that Ms. Klausner, 53, has never met a book she didn’t like. It would be more on the money to say she’s of the “if

Oh sure, normally we’re not shy about working our favorite topics into this blog, but sometimes things don’t work out the way we hope (usually this has to do with too little time, to little brain). However, in keeping with the trend of building buzz, The Guardian picks up on the idea of how entertainment media can jump on the bandwagon. First, a brief introduction: Anderson points out that, in the real world, there are physical limits on how many titles a shop can stock, or a cinema can show. These are the economics of shortages. For example, an average