Tag: reading

Friday Five: recent reads

Five things that caught my eye recently:

  1. Inspiration in a flash (or fifty). Read some of the stories selected for the Wigleaf top 50 2024 longlist of flash fictions. Congratulations to the authors who made this list!
  2. The century’s 100 best books, according to the New York Times (gift link).
  3. How to doomproof your reading. Good stuff from Junot Diaz’s StoryWorlds Substack.
  4. Happy five-year anniversary to one of my favorite online poetry journals, Sparks of Calliope. And in case you missed it, here’s my April 2024 Friday Five interview with editor Randal Burd.
  5. Enjoy this collection of summer-y poems by Mary Oliver, William Carlos Williams, Derek Walcot, and others, courtesy of Maya C. Popa.

Image via Pexels.

Friday Five: Thoughts on Steve Almond’s ‘Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow’

Why Steve Almond’s new book about the craft of writing is worth a read.

Cover image of the book "Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow," by Steve Almond.

I’ve read my share of books about writing in my time, and most of them have given me at least a nugget or two of wisdom or inspiration. A new entry to the craft genre by Steve Almond, Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow: A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories, which came out in April, is one of the best I’ve read in a while.

If you’re a writer, you should read this book. Here are five reasons why:

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