Vonnegut on Writing

Kurt Vonnegut is, I think, one of everyone's favorite writers. In addition to his wonderful fiction, he wrote some really nice essays, a few of which discuss the art of writing. Really, who better to take advice from? For your reading pleasure:

How to Write with Style
and
Eight Rules for Writing a Short Story (from his book Bagombo Snuff Box)

via kottke.org

Writer's Block? A tool for you!

So, you're sitting down at your desk, blank pages in front of you and pen poised to begin writing your submission for Plains Song Review XII. You want to write something amazing, but, alas! You have writer's block! How on earth will you think of something to write before the January deadline?

It's okay! We're here to help! Write or Die is a neat little Internet gadget that forces you to write. From the website:

Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you're fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences.

In my experience, the best way to beat writer's block is just to write something, anything on the page. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be something to get you going and kickstart your creativity. So this little application could be quite helpful for desperate situations!

PSR to Begin Accepting Graphic Literature Submissions!

Today, we have some very exciting news at PSR! Beginning this issue, we will be reviewing submissions of graphic literature!

It all started when Van Jensen (whose graphic novel was featured on PSR Book Club) asked if we'd ever considered publishing comics in Plains Song Review. Well, we hadn't, but it certainly seemed like an interesting idea! After thinking about it and talking about it for awhile, we decided to give it a try.

I know what you're thinking. Graphic literature? Isn't that just a fancy-pants name for comics? Yes indeed! But comics have gotten pretty literary and high-brow in recent years. For instance, last year in an English class, we read the graphic novel MAUS, a memoir of the Holocaust that won a Pulitzer. Other notable comics include Persepolis and Skyscrapers of the Midwest. Literary magazines are starting to take comics more seriously too. Virginia Quarterly Review regularly publishes them, and McSweeney's devoted an entire issue just to comics!

I really think comics could be a good fit at PSR. They're such a uniquely American art form, which makes sense for a publication like ours. Furthermore, graphic novels are uniquely well-equipped to explore "place," as they are able to both depict place both through words and through images.

Of course, PSR's publishing standards will remain the same as ever. We will only accept submissions that explore the Great Plains, and we will only accept submissions that we feel are high quality. If we don't get any good comic submissions this year, we simply won't publish any comics. That said, I'm hoping that we get some really good stuff to show you when Issue XII comes out.

Graphic Literature Submission Guidelines can be found at http://www.unl.edu/plains/publications/PSR/psr.shtml.

New Photography Exhibit

The Center for Great Plains Studies just opened its new exhibits:

Searching for the Real Nebraska: A Photo Essay on the Great Recession. The exhibit features photographers Bruce Thorson, Patrick Breen, Kyle Bruggeman, and Clay Lomneth, and it runs from November 6th to December 13th. People of the Plains is a series of black and white photographs by John Evasco. These are some gorgeous photographs, so I highly recommend going to see them.

Check them out at CGPS 1155 Q Street, Lincoln, NE 68588-0214. The gallery is free and open to the public. Check the website for hours.

Save The Words!

Oxford English Dictionary has a new campaign to save old, unused words from completely dropping out of our language! Save the Words allows users to sign up to "adopt" words to keep them from being lost. You pick a word from their many options, and commit to use it as often as you can in normal conversation. It sounds kind of silly, but a lot of these words are wonderfully specific and meaningful and absolutely deserve to be reinvigorated!

I've adopted "helctic," which means "acting to drag or draw out." Isn't that a terribly useful word? This is also a good site for poets who are looking for the perfect ancient adjective who add flavor to their lines.

How to Write Badly Well

Want to know how to write a wonderful piece of fiction? Don't take advice from Joel Stickley! Stickley is a writer and the author of the blog How to Write Badly Well. It lists some really cringe-worthy ways one can ruin a piece of writing.

An excerpt, from the post "Present your research in the form of dialogue:"

‘My god,’ said Geoff, ‘so it’s true. We hold in our very hands the original draft of the hitherto unknown third treaty of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia signed by the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III himself.’
‘Yes,’ confirmed Sally. ‘Who would have thought when we set off this morning for this remote Swiss village that we would end the day in possession of the very document which marked the birth of modern European statehood?'
‘Certainly not me!’ laughed Geoff.

via kottke.org

Gregory Euclide's Landscape Art

There's a neat exhibit going on at the David B. Smith Gallery in Denver, CO right now. The artist is Gregory Euclide, and he does art that explores our relationship with the landscape. The press release says:

Euclide explores the difficulty of escaping the cultural lens from which we view nature. Images from traditional landscape paintings, wildlife documentaries and travel guides construct our cultural expectations and define how we view land. Euclide’s work explores the conflicts between these images of idealized, picturesque views and the desire to truly experience nature as it is.

Not near Denver? The website has a photo gallery where you can see the art!

via boingboing.net

Great Plains Halloween

It's Halloween Eve! So we're going to do an extra link-filled post today, to make sure you're prepared for this wonderful holiday in an appropriately Great Plains fashion.

The Journal Star has local Halloween events both for families and for adult-types.

The only Nebraskan horror movie!

Finally: a few Great Plains ghost legends: Faceless Fred, ghosts of Neihardt Hall, and Omaha's Hummel Park.

Happy Haunting!

PSR Halloween Book Club: Guide to the Ghosts of Lincoln

For this installment of PSR Book Club, we have a Halloween book! Alan Boye's A Guide to the Ghosts of Lincoln is a look at some of Lincoln, Nebraska's most thrilling ghost stories. It also happens to be the most-frequently stolen book at Lincoln City Libraries. I highly recommend checking it out (not stealing it!) so you can scare your friends with spine-tingling stories whilst impressing them with your knowledge of local history!

A Haunted History of Lincoln

I am generally not a Holiday Person, but I love Halloween! I especially like ghost stories; they give you such a good sense of a community's history and culture.

Lincolnite Dale Bacon is another ghost story lover. He gives bus tours every year of Lincoln's haunted places. This year, he's come out with a ghost story DVD: A Haunted History of Lincoln: The Capitol City. Check out the Journal Star for an interview with Bacon about ghosts and his DVD. If you want a DVD of your own, email dtb22@windstream.net.

Be sure to check back on Wednesday for some spine-tingling ghost stories from the Great Plains!