Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 139

Is There Still Space in Our Digital World for Long-form Writing?

What’s a long read for you?

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140 characters?

140 sentences?

140 pages?

So much now on the Internet is being squeezed into the smallest space possible…

Is there a future for reading “Long” pieces??

I stumbled on an article in New York Magazine—The Future of Reading, According to Longform.

Here are just a few excerpts:

“Longform.org is one of a handful of websites that made an early bet on the survival of feature writing in a click-bait world.”

“...

Friday Poll ~ What Do You Write On, Computer or Paper?

Image Courtesy of Mikhail Popov

Image Courtesy of Raphael Pinto

First, last week’s poll…

There are a lot of results so, after the tallying up, this week’s poll will be short :-)

I’m going to start at the bottom and work up:

No one voted for “I sometimes travel out of town to visit a library.”

Each of the following got just over 3%:

I regularly socialize at a library

I never study/write at a library

I sometimes read at a library

I regularly read at a library

I never check out materials other than books a...

Not Much Time Left To Sign-Up for FREE Creative Writing Course !

I wish I’d heard about this sooner but I’m grateful my Best Friend’s Best Friend noticed this MOOC.

Don’t know what a MOOC is?

A Massive Open Online Course and here’s a link to Lots of MOOCs…

The one I’m featuring today is at the University of Iowa, sponsored by their International Writing Program, and called How Writers Write Fiction.

Image Courtesy of Google Earth

The course begins Friday, September 26th and runs through Friday, November 21st.

The instructors “will contextualize the contributing...

3 More Ways To Publish An E-book

I’ll save what I consider the best for last…

Image Courtesy of Arjun Kartha ~ http://arjunkarthaphotography.com/

So, first is a new way to get published through Amazon—a mysterious, possibly breakthrough endeavor.

From TechCrunch‘s article—Amazon Looking To The Wisdom Of Crowds To Find New Authors:

“According to a Kindle Direct Publishing forum user, Amazon is quietly rolling out a way to find diamonds in the proverbial publishing rough. The unnamed project would bring a crowd approach to the acq...

Writing Can Do WAY More Than Tell Stories . . .

Image Courtesy of Mateusz Stachowski ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/mattox

If it’s possible to “run into someone” on the Internet, I just ran into Rachel Grate,an English and Gender & Women’s Studies dual major at Scripps College, a writer, a runner, and feminist.

She blogs over at AustenFeministand also writes for other publications.

I bumped into her on the WebSite,Arts.Mic, where she publishedthe article, Science Shows Something Surprising About People Who Love to Write.

I should point ou...

Building An Author Platform ~ One Critical Step . . .

The universe of Book Promotion gave birth to the term Author Platform and I’ve been amused ever since…

Image Courtesy of Simeon Eichmann ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/simeon

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the term but there are plenty of folks who use it in funny ways.

Some writers build a platform to promote themselves according to instructions from “experts”…

Some build a platform for their books and then hide under the platform…

I’ve written a number of posts about Author Platform...

Friday Poll ~ All About Libraries

First, the results of last week’s poll—Where You Read…

Image Courtesy of Jonathan Adrianzen ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/jadrianzen

There was a three-way tie for first place—Living room, Bedroom, and “Other” with Bathroom, Bath, Work, and In Front of My Computer.

Second place had a two-way tie—Back Yard and Cafe/Coffee House.

Also a two-way tie for third place—Outdoors and Den/Study.

And, fourth place had another two-way tie—Kitchen and Bar.

Now, since I happened to end up with 3 out of 4 of...

Libraries Sponsoring Writers In Residence

I’ve done a few posts about residencies for writers—basically, a way to temporarily have their writing time “sponsored”, usuallyinvolving their living away from home.

Image Courtesy of Christopher Bruno ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/vxdigital & https://www.flickr.com/photos/cbruno

In Februaryit was, Mobile Writer-In-Residence.

In March, Writing On A Long Train Ride ~ ForFree?

And, May had Write A House ~ Quite ADeal.

Today, I’ll share a bit from an article in Library Journal—Libraries Welcom...

Younger People and Public Libraries

Image Courtesy of David Lat ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/davidlat

I have 32 posts tagged “Library”…

I just wrote one the other day called, Do Physical Libraries StillMatter?

Apparently they do still matter toMillennials (those 16-29) in the United States.

I can’t help but think GlobalMillennials in affluent countries find libraries useful too…

The Pew Research Internet Project recently released a new study, Younger Americans and Public Libraries.

Here’s an interesting note from the explanati...

Writing 101 ~ Don’t Let Yourself Feel Old

My body is officially “old”—my mind is “middle-aged”—my heart is very young—my spirit, ageless…

When I write, I blend all these phases of life…

When I edit, I’m constantly shooing away the old me—relying on the maturity of my middle-aged mind—letting my young heart guide me—urging my ageless spirit to shine through…

This blog has over 1,000 posts now; and, back in 2011 I wrote my 17th post—Learn From *Whoever* Has TheTruth.

I’m going to reproduce it here with a bit ofexpansion.

I did some Googling...