[Editors] Oh, fellow editors and writers--another good writing source

Wed Sep 23 09:33:09 EDT 2009

Hi all,

My vote for a little dose of good writing and thinking is Arts & Letters
Daily, compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education 

http://www.aldaily.com/. And it's even education-related.

nancy

Nancy DuVergne Smith
MIT Alumni Association | Editorial Director
W98-3rd Fl | 617-253-8217 | ndsmith at mit.edu
http://alum.mit.edu/  |  Slice of MIT blog:  http://alum.mit.edu/sliceofmit

From: editors-bounces at MIT.EDU [mailto:editors-bounces at MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of
Andrew Whitacre
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 1:07 PM
To: Scott Campbell
Cc: editors at mit.edu
Subject: Re: [Editors] Oh, fellow editors and writers, take a break for this
one...

In case this thread has anyone fearing for the future, know that there's a
great way to find good new writing while being totally lazy:
http://readsfeed.com. It's a site I built recently to make it easier for me
to find newly posted fiction. Works both as the site itself, as an RSS feed
( <http://readsfeed.com/feed/> http://readsfeed.com/feed/) and even as a
Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/readsfeed).

If anyone has suggestions for more <http://readsfeed.com/publications/>
publications to include, let me know!

Andrew Whitacre

Communications Manager

Comparative Media Studies & Center for Future Civic Media

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(617) 324-0490

awhit at mit.edu

On Sep 22, 2009, at 12:47 PM, Scott Campbell wrote:

Here are few more to tickle you.  The first four are from this year's
winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Contest. The last one, and surely the best, is
from The Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy, without question the worst writer
currently working in the English language.

Here's the grand prize winner from the contest:

Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when
the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are
howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of
the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on
just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big
John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.
David McKenzie
Federal Way, WA 

And here are some dishonorable mentions:

In a flurry of flame and fur, fangs and wicker, thus ended the world's first
and only hot air baboon ride. 
Tony Alfieri
Los Angeles, CA 

Without warning, their darting tongues entwined, like a couple of
nightcrawlers fresh from the baitshop--their moist, twisting bodies finally
snapping apart, not unlike an old man's muddy galosh being yanked away from
his patent leather shoe. 
Matt Dennison
Erie, PA

The gutters of Manhattan teemed with the brackish slurry indicative of a
significant though not incapacitating snowstorm three days prior, making it
seem that God had tripped over Hoboken and spilled his smog-flavored slurpie
all over the damn place. 
Eric Stoveken
Allentown, PA      

And finally, in a purple flurry, our boy Pat:

I looked up and saw my father shaking my mother, her eyes brimming with
tears, with humiliation. I never loved anyone as much as I loved her at that
moment. I looked at my father, his back to me, and I felt the creation of
hate in one of the soul's dark porches, felt it scream out its birth in a
black forbidden ecstasy.

Who knew the soul had PORCHES?  And not just one, but SEVERAL!

A friend of mine says that his soul actually has a very nice gazebo, thank
you very much.

______________________________________

Scott Campbell

Director of Communications

MIT School of Architecture + Planning

77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge MA 02139

Mail: MIT 7-231 .  Office: MIT 9-422

On Sep 22, 2009, at 11:17 AM, Teresa Hill wrote:

Thanks a lot, Nancy. Now I'm guffawing in my office and passersby are 

looking at me funny. Funnier than ususal. Terry

Nancy DuVergne Smith wrote:

Hi all

This is passed-on Internet humor.just makes you love our trade,

Nancy

*Subject:* FW: *Analogies Written by High School Students***

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides 

gently compressed by a ThighMaster.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances 

like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a 

guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of 

those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country 

speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar 

eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was 

room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes 

just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.< /div>

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated 

because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a 

surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a 

bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag 

filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an 

eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city 

and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when 

you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across 

the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having 

left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka 

at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences 

that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who 

had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was 

the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, 

only=2 0one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, 

this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not 

eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, 

but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land 

mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender 

leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around 

with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, 

as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Nancy DuVergne Smith

MIT Alumni Association | Editorial Director

W98-3rd Fl | 617-253-8217 | ndsmith at mit.edu

http://alum.mit.edu/ | Slice of MIT blog: http://alum.mit.edu/sliceofmit

------------------------------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________

Editors mailing list

Editors at mit.edu

http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/editors

_______________________________________________

Editors mailing list

Editors at mit.edu

http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/editors

_______________________________________________
Editors mailing list
Editors at mit.edu
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/editors

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/editors/attachments/20090923/6e5902c1/attachment.htm