Writing update (7.30.23)
A taut and tightly conceived newsletter.
If you’re new, welcome. This “Writing Update” is a semi-regular post that collects all the work I managed to finish in the past two weeks. You also get bonus content like a cute pet pic and a witty original post. Pretty great deal. Here’s a link to the previous installment, in case you missed it.
I’ve never really understood why book reviewers reach so often for “poetic” when describing prose they think is beautiful. I'm not here to be the literary police or anything; it’s just that poetry can be a lot of things besides beautiful and lyrical and heart-rending.
Poems can be vicious, obscure, soporific, deranged and ugly. Let’s stop pretending otherwise! All I’m asking for is more representation of poems that try to burn your house down and ruin your life.
Speaking of book reviews, I’m collecting a list of reviewer phrases I find silly and vacuous and that I’ve resolved never to use in my own writing. I’m calling the list “How to Talk about Books Without Really Saying Anything,” and most of what I’ve got so far comes from the New York Times Book Review:
“smart”
“tightly conceived”
“taut”
“taut and direct”
“economical”
“muscular”
“spare”
“unsparing”
“elegant and restrained”
“breathless”
And of course:
“poetic”
I’m sharing this list so you keep me accountable. If you find me using them, please shame me on social media. I will have deserved it. Also please send me your least favorite reviewing cliches and I’ll add them to the list.
Everything I've published recently:
This is how you squander the multiverse (Journal of Post American Studies)
The Wreckage of Dreams: Tynan Stewart reviews Blood of the Virgin by Sammy Harkham (SOLRAD)
Better Bacon Packaging Options (The Stopgap)
I’ve also done a bunch of reviews on my bookstagram over the last two weeks, including a roundup of all the graphic memoirs that were nominated for a 2023 Eisner Award:
Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by Lewis Hancox (Instagram / Goodreads)
So Much For Love: How I Survived a Toxic Relationship by Sophie Lambda (Instagram / Goodreads)
It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood (Instagram / Goodreads)
Down to the Bone: A Leukemia Story by Catherine Pioli (Instagram / Goodreads)
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (Instagram / Goodreads)
And here’s one other review on a little radical text that I really enjoyed: