Quarto Literary Magazine

Date My CWP

sys2105 — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:51:47 +0000

Even if you have no interest in the Columbia-NYU dating site, Date My School, do consider the treck down to NYU for their Creative Writing Program’s fantastic reading series. Some great events upcoming this month include Jonathan Safran Foer, a New Yorker 20 under 40 writer, Julie Orringer, and Interviews by the Paris Review with Jonathan Galassi, Janet Malcolm, Lorrie Moore, Gary Shteygart, and Gay Talese. Most events are free and open to the public, though some require a reservation; see more information here.

Learn more about Digital Publishing

sys2105 — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 05:53:40 +0000

With The Digital Reader Blog. Here blogger writes about why to avoid the ‘first one’ writing contest by new digital publishers First One.

Writer’s Market

sys2105 — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 05:16:36 +0000

Called the “Freelance writer’s bible” check out: WritersMarket.com.

Interested in being a Literary Agent?

sys2105 — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 05:09:54 +0000

Read this: The Agent’s Role in Today’s Digital Book World | Digital Book World.

More Than Memoir: on our campus

sys2105 — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 05:09:17 +0000

Read in the New York Magazine about how James Frey, author of the highly controversial memoir “A Million Little Pieces” came to speak to a columbia writing class about truth in memoir. Then follow up with the next post…

Agent Blogger

sys2105 — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:52:14 +0000

Just found this blog run by a professional literary agent. Check out topics including “When I stop reading” for advice on how to submit work that an agent will notice – and keep reading – or join me in wallowing in the lack of jobs in publishing, but with some helpful advice from the contributor and comments on how to build your resume and look appealing to agents and publishers who are still hiring.

happy job hunting.

What do you think?

sys2105 — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 02:12:43 +0000

Check out PW.com here: here to read about the editorial decision to eliminate slanderous words from Mark Twain’s classic Huckleberry Finn.

What do you think about this decision?

Interested to learn more about Digital Publishing?

sys2105 — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:12:38 +0000

come to this event at Sothebys Institute New York on January 20th from 3:30pm-6:30pm. Registration required: see below.

The First NYC Digital Show and Tell – eBooks, eReaders, and Digital Content Publishing (New York, NY) – Meetup.

Hope to see you there!

Recent Finds

sys2105 — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 06:12:12 +0000

Check out WeBook, a site which calls itself a “Writing community for writers, readers and literary agents” where you can “submit works, read and rate writings.” On the PageToFame section writers can post their work (for a minimal fee) to be rated by WeBook users. In the first round the first page is reviewed by users on a 5-point scale, if it does well readers judge a 5-page sample, and then the full piece. A panel of professional literary agents will review the best-rated pieces. Is this a backdoor to being discovered? Not really, but it might be a good way to test the appeal of your work and push yourself to create a greater online presence. As a reader you are able to see the percentage of readers who voted like you after you cast your vote, and thereby compare your opinion.

Overall Impression: Writers are not judged on a professional scale until they make it through many rounds, and are given minimal feedback, and beginning readers are only able to compare their ratings to the general readership and not the professional agents’ opinions, but still Worth checking out and a much better way to waste time than Facebook.

“August in an Orchard”

jay2127 — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 01:49:17 +0000

One of the fun things about poking through the Quarto archives is that, like in a lot of literature studies, you can come up with unique little intersections over time and space. I was going through the Fall 1954 issue, trying to see if anything caught my interest, when I was stopped momentarily by a what looked like a block print of a still life. We’ve been debating for a couple of years now whether or not we would include art or whether it would distract too much from the content, so I looked at the facing page to see how it matched up and found this little poem by one Winifred Hunt. It’s not exactly appropriate for the season, but recalls a little bit of the warmth of earlier months.

Open publication - Free publishing

Taking a quick glance at this, I was reminded in the opening lines of Wallace Stevens’ “The Plain Sense of Things”, for the way the poem is quiet, but self-assured and declarative. Realizing when this poem was published, I felt I had to cross check with my the Norton Anthology of American Literature I had sitting in front of me. And Stevens’ poem? Also 1954. How about that?

While not organized into neat little quatrains, Hunt’s poem has its own kind of progression and revisiting. The “windfall” and “downfall” evoke something of the season before it is even mentioned. The thrum of the local sounds goes from falling apples, to cider presses creaking, to “over the anvil month no melody wings”, which allows the katydids their place later in the poem. The use of repetition too gives us a sense of the sound before we fully become conscious of what it is we’re listening to, but even then, the experience of listening proves ultimately more important than what it is we are hearing, as the poem makes clear in the last stanza.

It’s an intriguing piece that makes me curious as to whether or not there are other poems by this author floating around the internet. For our part, all we can do is bring a few of them to light now and then and see what people make of it.