Kyra Maya Phillips's Blog, page 5

Zadie Smith’s golden rules for writers.

1. When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.

2. When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.

3. Don’t romanticise your “vocation.” You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no “writer’s lifestyle.”All that matters is what you leave on the page.

4. Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Do...

David Foster Wallace’s creative nonfiction syllabus

Just because I’m on a David Foster Wallace trip (the best kind), here’s the syllabus he gave out to his creative nonfiction students at Pomona College in Spring 2008. Found in the beautiful treasure trove that is The David Foster Wallace Reader.

Love this bit in particular:

“This creative goal, broadly stated, may be to interest readers, or to instruct them, or to entertain them, to move or persuade, to edify, to redeem, to amuse, to get readers to look more closely at or think more deeply...

David Foster Wallace on how to live a compassionate life.

Marginalia (noun): notes written in the margins of a text.

In June 2015, I decided that I wanted to read more. Lots more. Marginalia is where I share my thoughts on the books that I have read. I only have one test: that it helps me separate the meaningful from the trivial. One book per newsletter. Monthly (ish).

Welcome to this little newsletter. I hope it finds a place in your hearts and minds.

Now that I’m on other side of a massive and long project, I decided to do something I have been w...

Living The Questions

In 1999, when he was twenty years old, Duane Jackson was sent to prison for trafficking drugs from England to the United States. Ten years since his arrest, and a two and half year stint locked up, Duane has started, grown, and successfully sold his own business. By 2013, his company, KashFlow (a cloud based accounting software business) was employing 40 people, bringing in 2m a year in revenue, and providing its accounting services to around 20,000 start ups.

How did he do it? Drawing on his...

“I SEE YOU, HEART.”

This episode of Radiolab is just…wow. Two stunning stories of heart, awe, curiosity and wonder. Will make you want to live in this world.

KHALEESI’S REAL NAME IS KAREN

Check out this video of my never-dying crush, Kristen Wiig, pretending to be Khaleesi.

YOU DON’T NEED EYES TO SEE

Heard this track on the “How to Become Batman” episode of Invisibilia, a sublime podcast from NPR. On repeat until Season Two of Invisibilia appears.

A (new) newsletter.

Hi, friends. I just wanted to share a new project I’m working on with my very good friend, Nico.

Snail Mail is a monthly newsletter in which we recommend content that has had a lasting impact on us. By applying a filter of longevity to the pieces that we select, we hope to build an archive of material which has endured the pervasive force of online virality. To make the cut, content must be at least one yearold.

This is our manifesto.

by Kyra Maya Phillips and Nico Luchsinger.

The Internet i...

Quote Title

“All the writing blocks one goes through—the dizzy fits, the nauseas, and so on and so forth, which almost every writer has recorded—are a standard pattern for all kinds of creative things. They are simply forms of egotism.”