Iread

The weekend is here and we are back with the Iread series which keeps you updated on interesting things to read online. Dive in as you lazy around this weekend. Have a restful one.

Who is the Author of Toni Morrison? A rather long piece about the writer but you'd be glad you read it till the end. At 81, and after the loss of her son, Morisson is waxing stronger with a book to be released soon.

Morrison’s voice is as layered and visceral as her writing. The author growls, purrs, giggles, and barks. Discussing politics, her voice rises in indignation before cresting and breaking into a loud chuckle. (“They should have that in the military, or the prisons—a little affirmative action! Let’s bring some white guys in!”) She surrenders to a wheezing, shoulder-shaking, freight-train laugh when describing a particularly gruesome Funny or Die video. She booms theatrically in recounting the ghost stories her parents would tell every night. (“Sharpen my knife, sharpen my knife, gonna cut my wife’s head off!”)She slows to a pedagogical rhythm while discussing her “invisible ink”—symbols and allusions in her work that would be picked up only by a deep reader, or maybe someone writing a dissertation twenty years from now.

Best Resources for Fiction Writers: You think that you can write. Perhaps at different points, you attempted to write, some lines of poetry, some paragraphs of prose. You think you need some help to be better. Here is a list of resources that can help you. Don't just read them. Go out and get them. My favourite is Steven King's On Writing. Number Seven is our fave: A Wicked Good Dictionary

A good dictionary can be a writer’s best friend. My favorite online version (free!) is Merriam-Webster. It includes a thesaurus and, while grounded in American English, does offer British alternative spellings. (My UK friends might prefer other versions; let us know your favorites.) However, I’ve kept my big-ass print dictionary. To me, there’s something visceral and writerly about taking down a weighty tome and flipping through the pages. And it’s yet another resource for discouraging interruptions

Noo Saro-Wiwa, on her father, Ken Saro-Wiwa, his other family and writing: This well-written piece says it all. Go read for yourself!

"For years, we'd been dragged back there for two months every summer. We just said, enough is enough." And after Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed by the country's military dictatorship in November 1995, of course, there was even less of an incentive to return. Nigeria, says Noo, became a repository of all her pain, fears, disappointments and resentments, a place "where nightmares come true".

Do you have any links, stories to share with us? Feel free to drop a comment about them in the comment box. Thanks :)