Wow, the future is a crazy place. Word on the cyber-spacial street is that this blog, The World's First Author Blog, is now available as a subscription via your Kindle. While you are at it, plug into the Outsider Writers Collective blog, too. Click here to subscribe to www.CalebJRoss.com Click here to subscribe to www.outsiderwriters.org
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This is a guest post by Nadia Jones who blogs at accredited online colleges about education, college, student, teacher, money saving, movie related topics. You can reach her at nadia.jones5 @ gmail.com. I consider myself an indiscriminant and voracious consumer of fiction. While I mostly read novels, occasionally I find myself balking at the prospect of beginning yet another huge work of fiction, too exhausted by a previous book to dive into the new world of the next one. In these moments of reader fatigue, I take great solace in the numerous gifted short fiction authors writing today. I could go on about the classics (Carver, O’Conner, Hemingway, etc.) but I think current short fiction authors are much more fascinating reads, partly because their work is so immersed in the present. Jennifer Egan Jennifer Egan is a writer currently working out of Brooklyn, most recently recognized for her Pulitzer-Prize winning novel A Visit from…
This is a guest post by Jane Smith. Jane Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. If you’re reading this, you’d likely agree that nothing delivers the same intellectual delight as reading a compelling work of fiction. Generations of writers and casual readers alike have sought shelter in the sheer joy of reading as a means of escape or as a landscape by which to navigate and explore their imagination. The long line of omnivorous consumers of books from Gutenberg to you, dear reader, stands as a testament to the universal allure of the bound volume. But for all the draw to reading, there’s an complicit solitude involved; while reading engrosses us, it simultaneously isolates us from sharing the experience with others by virtue of being a solitary activity. This truth is particularly difficult to bear when we read a work that blows our minds or takes our breath away; there’s…
Not enough time. The forever growing stack of to-reads will never be tamed due to this one simple fact. Though I read every day, sometimes for hours at a time, I'm never able to get to all of the books I feel deserve to be read. With that, I bring you this short list of to-reads that I own already but have, embarrassingly, not had the chance to read. Why this post? Perhaps to keep me honest. Or, perhaps a way to get a few people to comment with variations of "what?" and "how could you?" To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Is my procrastination justified? No. This book was required reading in high school, yet I managed to coast by with barely even cracking the spine. Back then I was not into reading. I existed on a steady intellectual diet of video games and Family Guy. Even if the message…
I’m a data nerd. I’m a spreadsheet and chart nerd. Therefore, I could have made this lede a bit shorter and simply said “I’m a nerd.” Recently, I conducted a very unscientific poll on Twitter and Facebook, asking a general group of readers how they decide what to read when choosing a book. While this is an admittedly small poll with a slight slant toward people I know, even if tangentially (they are connected to me via Facebook and Twitter in some way), I feel the findings are still valid, at least as part of a possible larger survey. If anyone has the resources to conduct a larger poll, contact me. I’d love to see the data. Here are the results: Observations: It has long been said that word of mouth is the best advertising for books, so it is slightly surprising to see “Recommendations” appear 3rd on the list.…
de Tietz: "Caleb J.Ross writes like "if Jonathan Franzen did way too many barbiturates and got into a downward spiral." As always, Ben Tanzer moderates a fantastic episode of This Podcast Will Change Your Life. This episode brings with it Brandon Tietz, author of Out of Touch. He talks about his next book, Vanity, his work at The Cult, his contribution to Warmed and Bound, and much, much more. Subscribe to This Podcast Will Change Your Life. Never miss an episode. Okay.