by Virginia Lloyd | Jan 4, 2012 | Blog, Improve your writing, Memoir
What might it be like to write “for the unknown good of our enemies”? This is one of an inspiring and reassuring list of writers’ resolutions for 2012 from the blog of Brevity magazine: Some of my favourites: I will finish a draft without revising...
by Virginia Lloyd | Jan 3, 2012 | Blog, Pianos and pianists on the stage and the page
I must be missing New York’s cold January weather. How else to explain the two ice packs I’ve clutched to either end of me this past week in a hot and humid Australian climate? Visiting a dear friend in Brisbane, I fell over my own foot while hanging out...
by Virginia Lloyd | Nov 27, 2011 | Blog, Memoir, Young Widow's Book of Home Improvement
Tonight I learned that Australian filmmaker Sarah Watt died earlier this month. Sometimes I’m a little slow on the uptake – it was more than three weeks ago. She leaves behind a body of award-winning work, a loving husband, and two teenage children. This...
by Virginia Lloyd | Nov 21, 2011 | Blog, Improve your writing, Memoir
I’m excited that my first guest post on the terrific Brevity blog is now online. It’s a riff on a satirical attack on memoir-writing in the new play Seminar by Theresa Rebeck, which I recently saw in preview. The remarkable Alan Rickman (who I have adored...
by Virginia Lloyd | Nov 15, 2011 | Blog, Improve your writing, Memoir
The Economist’s books blog reviews James Wolcott’s memoir of 1970s New York as the latest in a long line of first-person accounts of living in the city. There are certain precautions memoirists can take to inoculate themselves against the genre’s hazards....
by Virginia Lloyd | Nov 13, 2011 | Blog, Improve your writing, Memoir
Did you know that literary magazine Tin House receives 2,000 stories every month? Or that New York literary agents receive 10-12 queries per day? These are a few of the reality-check gems I picked up by watching the videotaped National Book Critics Circle panel...