Author: Scott McKenzie

Smaller Magazines, Efficient Staff, Good Experiences

After the rush of seeing your byline in a national publication wears off, eventually, you want to get paid. If you’re trying to live as a freelancer, then you quickly learn that the bank won’t take the masthead for payment. Ronald won’t give you a Big Mac in exchange for a photocopy of your grooming bit in Cat Fancy. And…

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Thirteen Writing Prompts

  Dan Wiencek and the folks at McSweeney’s provide some humorous launch pads for your writing. Thirteen Writing Prompts contains such wonderful catalysts as “Write a short scene set at a lake, with trees and shit. Throw some birds in there, too.” Or, if that doesn’t strike your fancy, try to “Write a scene showing a man…

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A Deluge of Damn Good Books

Too many good books sitting on your desk is a good problem to have. A number of excellent reads are being released right around the same time and I’m enjoying the hell out of them. It makes for a lot of work because I need to crank out reviews, but it remains a pleasure. Here…

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Mudd on Eudora Welty’s Home

Also in the New York Times this past weekend was Roger Mudd’s commentary on the special opening of Eudora Welty’s home to the public. Mudd even divulges Welty’s comical crab casserole recipe.

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Who Is Still Buying This Book?

  In yesterday’s New York Times, James Frey’s controversial memoir A Million Little Pieces clocked in at number ten on the Paperback Nonfiction best seller list. The book has spent 32 weeks on the charts and the newspaper’s description of the memoir is that it “contains numerous fabrications.” It has been about 13 weeks since Oprah’s well-publicized…

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