READING WRITING
Shining A Light On Some New Names
And some intriguing ideas
My Read-Later-With-Coffee list surprised me this week. In amongst the old favourites was a crop of 7 writers I’d never read before. Now that sounded like an adventure well worth writing up.
The list came close to being trimmed to 6. There was an article in interview form that disturbed me for one of the questions it posed. As I write this, I don’t know if I’ll keep it in the list or quietly drop it. If I haven’t deleted this reference to it, then either it’s still here, or I’m getting very forgetful.
On To The Articles!
The headline on the first one was undoubtedly what made me bookmark it. Written by Zuzanna Żak, it said:
How to wake up correctly every day
It hadn’t occurred to me there was a right and a wrong way. Waking up is just something that I hope to do after I’ve been asleep. What could she mean? All I could come up with was that waking with a start and falling out of bed could count as sub-optimal and not a great way to begin the day, but anyway, I read on…
Zuzanna essentially puts forward the proposition that you should find what you’re passionate about and start the day with that, and she weaves the premise into a neat little story around birds, those notoriously early risers. I enjoyed the read.
The next one was from arun. Its headline read:
My Encounter With a Tiger in Nagarhole
Encountering a tiger is something I’m never likely to do in real life, so of course, I wanted to read about it. Nagarhole, I learnt, is one of India’s best-preserved jungle reserves and thus a good place to be if tiger spotting is your thing. Arun makes clear that it’s no easy task, and that on a 3-day safari, his one tiger sighting lasted less than a minute. Nonetheless, he was luckier than many who spent longer without so much as a glimpse of a stripy tail.
Arun provides some tips for would-be tiger-spotters noting the advantage that can be gained by getting ahead of the competition. The early bird, he points out in an echo of Zuzanna’s story, catches the worm. Oh, and his photos are amazing!
From the jungles of India, I moved to the more familiar ground of a day out in London with Duncan Klein, and a piece ambitiously titled:
How to Spend the Perfect Day in London
Having worked in London and spent time visiting relatives who live there, I have done a fair bit of exploring this capital city and was curious to see how Duncan’s perfect day would pan out. All in all, I found myself thinking, Not bad advice. Then I met this unexpected comment,
“The article is generated by AI to see how a robot gives travel advice. Not too bad. I’ve been to London many times and that’s a pretty good day.”
Hmm, not sure what to make of that. A robot writer?
Just to be clear, Duncan went on to say, “Ah, some of this was written by me, rather than a boring old robot.” In that case, Duncan, I shall put down the one bit of bad advice to the robot — that of going to a pub for a pint of ale. My advice: don’t drink London beer. It’s lightweight and expensive. Come further north for a good pint.
The next article, by Crystal Guthrie, came under this banner:
“New Writer Under Construction…Google That Shit”
The message that gives me is Don’t reinvent the wheel! Do you want success as a writer? Then don’t set out as though you’re an explorer crossing virgin territory, because you’re not. Many others have been here before and mapped out the routes, discovered the pitfalls, and developed some stunning strategies and techniques, any or all of which might work like magic for you, but you’ll never know if you blunder about with your eyes shut.
The whole concept of reading your way into a new area, exploring what others have done so you can start from where they stopped, rather than repeating all their mistakes is a key plank in all of the human progress. It’s something I’ve been teaching students since before the word “google” (then spelt googol) meant anything other than a very large number.
Crystal’s article is an energetic fast-moving romp through the topic, written in the context of her own writing journey. I enjoyed it. Written too for the internet age — and yes it’s so much easier to delve online, though also so much easier to be hoodwinked, so do take care. Here’s a cautionary tale:
From here, I found myself not only with a writer I hadn’t encountered before but someone who was writing about another writer that I didn’t know — a kind of 2 for the price of 1.
However, I have to confess that this article contained elements that disturbed me. It was in the form of an interview and asked things that — in my view — it should not. I left a comment noting my concerns.
This is an interview of the Polish poet, Norbert Góra, by the Ethiopian poet, Aleme Gammo under the handle of Poetry Education.
Prior to reading this, I was not familiar with either poet, but there were insights within the article that made me take note of the names.
The next article by Leonard Tillerman talks about Medium as a blogging platform and speculates on recent changes. Since details of algorithms remain closely guarded secrets, an article like this can only ever be observation and speculation.
Leonard makes some interesting observations. I won’t say I agree fully with the conclusions he draws, but I don’t have to agree with everything to enjoy a good read and he mentioned one thing that I’ve noticed too. It’s pertinent to my choice of writers in this article:
I am now seeing writers who I have never seen before.
Me too, Leonard, and I agree with you that this is a positive change.
The 7th in my list of writers-new-to-me is Ronald C. Flores-Gunkle. It was his main photograph that attracted me to the article.
I have a clutch of favourite writers whose photography is stunning and covers a vast area both geographically and topic-wise. Off the top, I can name Dennett, Susan Alison, Anne Bonfert, pockett dessert, Ellie Jacobson, Mary Chang Story Writer, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles and must give apologies to those who should be here but whose names didn’t spring to mind in time. And now I believe I’ve found another to add to their ranks.
In this piece, Ronald uses the 1950s novel How Green Was My Valley to frame his piece, contrasting the flora of his tropical island home to the Welsh valleys of the book. He says that a trip to Wales is on his bucket list. I’m happy to recommend Wales to Ronald. It’s a beautiful country and has been one of our regular holiday destinations.
I’m also happy to recommend all the writers mentioned above.
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