There are no photos in my my writing room. No kids, no parents, no family. Pictures of my parents have the worst effect on me when I’m trying to write. “When are you going to get a real job, Barb?” they shout from their frames as I enter the workroom. Peering over my shoulder, they pass judgment on me and my thoughts, “You’re writing about that? Shame on you.”
The Writing Room
I’m a writer who loves to talk about writing, so if you’re a writer or an aspiring writer I hope you'll stop by now and then and keep me company . . . You’ll find writing tips here as well as my thoughts on the writing life. Watch out, though. The Grammar Geek will be putting in her two cents from time to time.
The Writing Room: Journalists in Jail Around the World — More and More Are Freelancers
The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that freelancers now make up nearly 45 percent journalists jailed around the world, an increase that probably reflects changes in global news reporting.
Noah Lukeman on the Colon, That Most Majestic of Punctuation Marks . . .
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Noah Lukeman[/caption]
Noah Lukeman[/caption]
Ever since I read Noah Lukeman’s treatise on the comma in a 2006 issue of The Writer’s Chronicle, I have been a fan. A devotee. No, let’s face it, a groupie. Read more.
The Writing Room: If It’s Religious, Can It Be Art?
Is religious art an oxymoron these days? Can “great” art address matters spiritual in the modern era? Read more.
Writing Room: A Week With Lauren Winner — Of “Girl (Woman) Meets God”
Lauren Winner, author of Girl Meets God, is anything but girlish. First of all, she’s a woman, not a girl — she’d like that to be clear. She also has a tough, incisive mind.
The Rhetorician in the White House — Or, How I Learned to Love the Passive Voice
The passive sentence gets a bad rap — it’s weak, it’s vague, it’s passive. But sometimes a neatly turned passive sentence is just what our ever-shrinking world needs. Obama’s Cairo speech is an example. Read more.
In the Garden With the Grammar Geek: Is It Ever OK to Use the Passive Voice?
Passive sentences can be wordy and vague — or useful. For me, a passive sentence is one that, like it or not, obscures the doer of the action. Read more.