What I’m Reading-

Yes, a cop-out. Seems like the spring/summer writer’s block has arrived and I’m doing a lot of reading instead. I’m a fan of the short story. They get to the meat-of-the-matter a lot quicker. The writing has to be more crisp and cleaner—abilities I’m trying to master. Below is a list of my guys, in no particular order of preference.

‘The Best American Short Stories of the Century’  used from $.01 at Amazon

John Updike – all his short stories and essays. A man who can write a sentence three-quarters of a page long is a hero of mine.

Natalie Goldberg – ‘Writing Down the Bones’,  ‘Long Quiet Highway’

Lorrie Moore – a short story master,  ‘Self Help’, ‘Like Life’,  ‘Birds of America’ and novels ‘Anagrams’, ‘Who Will Run the Frog Hospital’, ‘A Gate at the Stairs’

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Garrison Keillor – he writes for Salon and they have an archive

http://www.salon.com/writer/garrison_keillor/

if you edit the address line there are 62 pages of his articles including his ‘Ask Mr. Blue’ stuff from years ago 

this is page 2

 http://www.salon.com/writer/garrison_keillor/page/2/

just change the  /2/  in it to /3/ through /62/

 http://www.salon.com/writer/garrison_keillor/page/62/

To give you a shot of GK if you’re not a fan, follow this link and scroll down to the ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ article. If you don’t laugh while reading it maybe you should visit your local proctologist. 

 http://www.salon.com/writer/garrison_keillor/page/32/

Then there’s his podcasts of A Prairie Home Companion’s ‘News From Lake Wobegon’ and ‘The Writers Almanac’ one can get from the iTunes store or Zune

 http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/

 http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/

Of course you really have to be a fan of his (I is) for this level of inquiry but…

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And there’s some blogs I follow that are listed to the right. Cat Woods usually has some good stuff in her ‘Words from the Woods’ and Rosemary is always a hoot in her ‘Rambling Rose’.

For serious stuff I follow Peggy Noonan and Gwynne Dyer. These two make you think about national and world politics.

http://www.peggynoonan.com/    http://gwynnedyer.com/archives/

So, happy reading for the Summer of ‘12