Definitely and inflexibly

August 8, 2020

Here’s our topic sentence, italics mine: The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call...

...

July 18, 2020

Dear reader, Here is our topic sentence for today: Notice One of my favourite things about short stories is what they don’t have to be. They don’t have to be...

Conceal everything

July 3, 2020

Dear reader, Here’s our topic sentence for today, context included and italics mine: She shakes herself, then hides for a moment in the powder room and...

Follow the brush

June 19, 2020

Dear reader, I have been collecting little missives about what to do as a writer when you don’t know what to do. Like this one from M. John Harrison (via...

Know the rule so you can break it well

September 13, 2019

Dear reader, Here’s our topic sentence: From my window, the deep solemn massive street. Cellar-shops where the lamps burn all day, under the shadow of top-...

Writing is easy, or at least, not impossible

September 4, 2019

My current thesis is that writing is easy. Here is a foolproof method to improve your writing: Think of something you want to say.Write a sentence that tries...

It's gifts all the way down

August 23, 2019

Dear reader, Here’s our topic sentence for today: The true commerce of art is a gift exchange, and where that commerce can proceed on its own terms we shall...

The world were a great mistake

August 2, 2019

Dear reader, (Welcome to new readers from Sarah Avenir/&yet! What we do here is talk about one sentence from one book, every few weeks—so that we get better...

No action exists outside the context of history

July 7, 2019

Dear reader, Get yourself a snack, this is a long one: In this same instant the young man froze, the emblems of sense in his wild face wide open toward me,...

Adulting is not a verb that we should be proud of

June 7, 2019

Dear reader, Here’s our topic sentence for today: Now we are truly adult, we think, stunned that this is what being adult means, nothing at all like what we...

The Unguessable Country

May 18, 2019

Dear reader, (Welcome to new readers, especially those from Sarah Avenir’s wonderful newsletter. In Topic Sentence, I write about sentences, because good...

Writing is hiding

April 26, 2019

Here’s our topic sentence: She must have noticed all the perfectness from the bus window because she couldn’t afford the cab fare: Second Street, glinting...

In which we won’t pretend to know what it means

March 29, 2019

Here’s our topic sentence for today: Then I went back to my own writing, my own inability to get going until five in the afternoon, my animal sense of being...

In which we break things thereby proving we can't have nice things

March 8, 2019

Dear reader, Here’s our topic sentence: The perfect shatters. This sentence from Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse (recommendation via the very...

In which we behave like a metaphor

February 22, 2019

Dear reader, Hello to new subscribers! And thanks to all who wrote letters of introduction, haikus to welcome this incarnation of your humble sentence-...

In which we assume a new name

February 8, 2019

Dear reader, (A bit of housekeeping: hello from Substack! This newsletter, formerly known as Bibliopath, used to be sent from Tinyletter, which I still love...

Bibliopath is moving! Also, not called Bibliopath!

February 8, 2019

Dear reader, Sorry this will be a double email for some of you, but just a short note to say that I'm moving this humble little sentence newsletter to...

Bibliopath #28: In which we join the sentence hunt

December 7, 2018

Dear reader, Consider this topic sentence, from Dorothy Dunnett, who should be more widely considered the greatest historical novelist of all time: "It had...

Bibliopath #27: In which we get down to the bone

November 23, 2018

Dear reader, Here's our topic sentence for today: I stay downstairs while the family breathes above me and I write it down, I lay them out in nice sentences,...

Bibliopath #26: In which we dance around the subject

November 9, 2018

Dear reader, Here's our topic sentence for today: But writing, whatever its medium, is made of words, and words are bodily, made with the body and the...

Bibliopath #25: In which we make up everything

October 19, 2018

Dear reader, Believe me, I never thought it would come to such an extraordinary step—but let's talk about physics. A handful of types of elementary...

Bibliopath #24: In which we spin silver

October 5, 2018

Dear reader, Here's our topic sentence: Silver coins were going out with the water like leaping fish, tumbling away between the shards, a treasure that was...

Bibliopath #23: In which you best believe I have some thoughts about Crazy Rich Asians

September 7, 2018

Dear reader, A slightly different letter today, but I saw Crazy Rich Asians last night and I have some thoughts: --- Of course they make dumplings. Despite...

Bibliopath #22: In which we are always a tramp

August 24, 2018

Dear reader, The internet can still be good sometimes. I came across our topic sentence on a meandering through the Internet—from a Twitter stream of...

Bibliopath #20: In which we attempt an act of transmutation

July 12, 2018

This one is dedicated to M. Dear reader, “First you shape the vision of what the projected work of art will be. The vision, I stress, is no marvelous thing:...

Bibliopath #20: In which we inevitably talk about Orwell

June 30, 2018

Dear reader, There comes a time in the life of every email newsletter about sentences where we have to talk about George Orwell. For example, we could start...

Bibliopath #19: In which we get a bit crude

June 15, 2018

Dear reader, Here's a sentence that I think about a lot: I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style...

Bibliopath #18: In which we work very hard to stay still

June 1, 2018

Dear reader, Here's a sentence: Ask any ice-skater or ballet dancer or show jumper, anyone who lives by beautiful moving things: nothing takes as much work...

Bibliopath #17: In which we get lost in the woods

May 18, 2018

Dear reader, Here's our topic sentence—it comes from Tana French's In the Woods, a sharply crafted murder mystery/police procedural that I read obsessively....

Bibliopath #16: In which we get down to the bone

May 4, 2018

Dear reader, I've written before how Helen Garner's Feel of Steel is a lodestone for me, something that I reread when I feel like I'm struggling as a writer,...

Bibliopath #15: In which we make an announcement, vague

April 20, 2018

Dear reader, Did I tell you I'm making a podcast? (Making a podcast is the millenial's version of 'Let's start a band', someone tweeted this week.) It's...

Bibliopath #14: In which we language ourselves free

April 13, 2018

Dear reader, My favourite sentence this week was from Michael Ondaatje's The Cat's Table: What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in...

Bibliopath #13: In which we talk about Ursula just one more time

April 6, 2018

Dear reader, I'm pivoting this newsletter slightly to talk about a sentence I liked this week, and hoping to email a bit more frequently. With that in mind,...

Bibliopath #12: In which we get back to work

February 16, 2018

Dear reader, Apologies for my absence. You may have already heard, but Ursula K. Le Guin died on January 22nd. Regular readers will know what this means to...

Bibliopath #11: In which time has some explaining to do

February 24, 2017

Dear reader, The writing of this has been on pause for a while. I guess it's partly because this newsletter is predicated on the assumption that 'reading...

Bibliopath #10: In which the author twiddles his thumbs out loud

October 22, 2016

Dear reader, So ... this is awkward. I don't really have a book for you this week. Not that I haven't been reading, because I have (I finished Sea for...

Bibliopath #9: In which we aspire to Indian giving

September 30, 2016

Dear reader, There's a book that keeps on coming up in my conversations, but, I don't know, maybe you wouldn't be interested. Maybe it's not quite for you....

Bibliopath #8: In which we get our Hebrides on

September 16, 2016

Dear reader, I wonder if you'd like The Hills is Lonely by Lillian Beckwith? Actually, no, I'm pretty sure you will. I stole this recommendation from a...

Bibliopath #7: In which a girl gets magic

September 2, 2016

Dear reader, You know, I was wondering if you'd like Uprooted by Naomi Novik? It was originally recommended via Katharine as part of the ebook secret Santa...

Bibliopath #6: In which an eldest sibling siblings

July 22, 2016

Dear reader, A friend linked to this fascinating article, "Too Fast, Too Furious" from n+1. It is one part screed against the hastening pace of postmodern...

Bibliopath #5: In which we bask in the love of a woman of letters

July 7, 2016

Dear reader, This book is for Casey, and anyone else who loves sharing in a love of books. It's 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, and before you ask,...

Bibliopath #4: In which a boy's life is *actually* changed by bird paintings

June 30, 2016

Dear reader, Sharp-eyed readers might have noticed a mismatch between the subject line and last week's Bibliopath, simply because I changed my mind about the...

Bibliopath #3: In which a boy's life is changed by bird paintings

June 24, 2016

Dear reader, Contentment is a strangely fading treasure. Like humility, as soon as you think you have it, that your quest is over, it fades away again in...

Bibliopath #2: In which a priest battles Communists, talks with Jesus

June 16, 2016

Dear reader, Thank you for your surfeit of replies about the reboot and rebaptism of Bibliopath. I really do enjoy getting emails from all of you, but...

Bibliopath #1: The Email Newsletter formerly known as Things I've Read

June 10, 2016

Dear reader, In reply to my last email, Sonia emailed me about bibliotherapists at last month's Sydney Writers' Festival. Like a therapist, you booked in an...

Things I've Read, June 2016: Tear It Down (and important bits)

June 3, 2016

Dear reader, Reasons I've been procrastinating about this letter: I somehow have both more things to do and less things to do than I have for a while;I...

Things I've Read, March 2016: Matters

March 30, 2016

Dear reader, I've just managed to catch March by the tail, in bringing this to you. It was a long and somewhat forlorn summer, one in which I read, one in...

Things I've Read, December 2015: Content (and annual eBook Secret Santa swap!)

December 10, 2015

Dear reader, It's been sort of a strange year. And lately, I've been reminded and reminding myself of the simple things: - No really, you should exercise. -...

Things I've Read, November 2015: Pathfinding

November 19, 2015

Dear reader, I think sometimes about how stories shape us. In this Michael Jensen article, "Stories We Live By", he posits a thought experiment about what we...

Things I've Read, October (!) 2015: Escaping the Fraud Police

October 2, 2015

Dear reader, Let's begin with the fear. I fear that people won't want to read this after a long silence. I fear that I won't have admirable things to say. I...