For the past five years, I’ve been writing book reviews for the local newspaper, at a rate of about two per month. I got a ton of free books from the gig and I find that writing brief (550 word) articles is good training for editing. If I wanted to add a sentence to a review, I had to take one away, and I got very proficient at trimming excess verbiage.
Alas, the supplement that contains reviews and entertainment listings is losing money. The book section survived the first round of editorial trimming, but not the second.
However, a new forum for my reviews fell into my lap at just the right time. I am a member of the charter editorial board of the new online literary review forum Accent, which went live a couple of hours ago. I have five or six reviews in the inaugural issue. Check it out!
In the next issue I should have reviews of the new Tom Wolfe, Jonathan Kellerman, Poppy Z. Brite, the Transgressions anthology. At some point I’ll also be contributing a review of Don Quixote to the classics section. I recently got a copy of the new translation and I’m really looking forward to reading it.
Looks great, Bev! Good luck with it!
Congrats Bev! I really like the site and look forward to reading more of your reviews.
Nice show of balance, Bev. Congratulations on the serendipity.
Thanks in no small part to your advice, my request to start writing reviews for my local paper was accepted. I’m working on the first one now and I’m definitely finding it an effort to whittle my tendency towards verbosity down to under 500 words.
Many thanks for your experience and best of luck in your new venture. Those are some really great reviews.
Well done – I have put the Straub book on the to read list. Just recently read lost boy, lost girl and enjoyed it.
Those next reviews are a great selection of titles. Good Luck on the new venture.
That’s great, Craig. I find it easier to overshoot the 500 and whittle down than it is to write up to 500. For my 550 word reviews I sometimes start from as high as 750 and pare out nearly 1/3 of the content, but I’m finding it easier and easier to do. Not everything I have to say on a subject is crucial!