Writers' Café

links to good reading

These sites allow you to read other writers' work and provide helpful information for your writing life.

On Writing and the Publishing Industry

Poets and Writers provides resources for writers, announcements, and excerpts from the magazine.

AWP publishes The Writer's Chronicle, with news, interviews, and announcements of interest to writers.

Readerville is all about living as a writer and reader.

Moby Lives provides news and commentary on writers and literary texts.

Arts and Letters Daily allows you to stay on top of news that impacts writers, teachers, philosophers, and artists. It is very comprehensive (and therefore somewhat daunting). Newer material is added at the tops of the columns.

Publisher's Lunch is a free e-mail subscription for news in the trade book community.

Mediabistro offers gossip and news about the publishing industry as well as interviews with writers and editors and tips on pitching articles. Some areas of the website are open to the public, others require a free membership, and still others require a $50/year membership. If you register for the free membership, you can get a daily e-mail message of media news with links to stories.

At Holt Uncensored, an on-line column, you will find reflections on the book industry, interviews with writers, and reviews of books.

Nonfiction

Harper's provides some content from the magazine on-line.

Salon is available on-line by subscription or after watching an ad.

Creative Nonfiction provides some of its content on-line (in the back issues section). The magazine also hosts Brevity, an on-line journal for short nonfiction.

Identity Theory is a web-based magazine that presents nonfiction, interviews with writers, and cultural criticism.

The New Yorker provides some of its features online.

HOW2 is an online journal of innovative writing by women.

The New York Times Magazine is available online.

Inspiration for Writers

What makes us tick as a culture? Snopes is a site about urban legends and stories that circulate in American society. The site is interesting for the insight it offers us into the elements that recur in stories that we hear (and tell) via the Internet, gossip, and tabloids.

Found Magazine allows us to meditate on found images (photos found on the street or in a basement, for example) and documents (lists, notes, signs, etc.). The magazine posts a lot of material on their website; a hard-copy magazine is also available by subscription. Notice how quickly you construct stories to explain these finds.

Blogs

Blogs feature informal writing that falls somewhere between keeping a journal, making a bunch of your favorite links available for others, and publishing your writing. Some blogs are just annotated links to other texts gleaned with a particular set of interests in mind. Others provide an opportunity for someone to write and be read by other people (regularly, if the writer is good). Some blogs are written by just one person while others are joint projects. Blogs allow varying levels of commentary by readers, depending on the blogger's preferences. You can find sites that will host your blog for free if you want to start one.

Here is an article about blogs that also provides links to blog directories.

Here is a blogger discussing some of the potential and the limitations of blogs.

There are many very dull blogs out there, but there are also a lot of smart, funny, and passionate ones. When you find one you like, the blogger usually offers a list of his or her favorite blogs, so that you can read more widely. Here are a few blogs that usually provide some good reading:

The Written Road (check the archives for useful writing/publishing advice)

Zulkey

Idle Words

Maud Newton

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The Writing Center
Department of English
University of Pittsburgh