Recently, I’ve been reading The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, by Jonathan Gottschall—an excellent companion to the work of Lisa Cron, on the evolutionary role of storytelling and its centrality to human consciousness and culture. In the course of Gottschall’s argument that fictional stories are in fact essential to our learning and development as a species, he first dismisses the … Read More
Small Changes > Big Goals
If you’re like me, you have some big goals, and you’ve had them for years. One of mine has been to read 52 books in a year. Every year, it seems, I resolve to make this happen during the first week of the new year–and every year I fall short. Pictured here, you’ll see what my husband calls my Pile … Read More
This is Your Brain on Books
We all know that reading helps us gain skills and knowledge, and maybe even become better people (though of course, you can’t believe everything you read in the self-help aisle). Which is to say, reading helps us grow new synapses, and become brainier. So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at the degree to which writing has taught me about the … Read More
Decolonizing the Imagination: Some Thoughts on Critique and Feedback
Good editorial feedback can make a huge difference in a writer’s life. Bad editorial feedback can make a huge difference too, and not in a good way. A post I wrote for JaneFriedman.com, “How to Spot Toxic Feedback,” has generated a lively conversation–so many people have had to muddle their way through inept, misguided, and sometimes even nastily personal feedback … Read More
