what makes writing good

I've got a Pinterest board called "Good Writing and Storytelling." 

 My description: "There's great storytelling and/or writing on this board, and there's some that borders on dreadful, but there's a reason to examine each of these. I found them interesting in the way they fulfilled their purpose... or didn't."

Here's my latest pin on that board: "'Atlanta's Turner Field is dying -- and American Sanity is Dying With It' by Will Bunch at philly.com. Good Storytelling. The writer's passion and indignation are front and center along with impressive statistics and a fresh way of showcasing them. The quality of the writing lags behind the impressive persuasion, but the persuasion trumps the writing here. Well done."

Here's a link to the story itself. 

I started this board on Pinterest as a way for me to examine what makes writing good -- it's what I teach, and it's what I'm always trying to learn. I'm very selective about the links I pin here, so the board has grown slowly. Looking at it now, though, I smile at my own remarks (click on the links below that will take you to each individual Pinterest pin, and then click on the image if you want to read the article that I -- ahem -- assess):

-- Overwriting at its finest. Superlative cliches. Still, I appreciate all the information about Osage Farms in Rabun County, Georgia, as I want to go there soon, and at least this writer's report is thorough.

--  I like this piece in The Atlantic by Michael Agresta, because it's enlightening and informative in its assessment of the failure of The Lone Ranger this summer as well as its tie-in to the Western genre, and the Western's place in American film, myth, dreams, nostalgia. Nicely done.

-- Washington Post to be sold to Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon - The Washington Post. Very well-written in that it gives the reader solid background about both Bezos and The Post, and puts the history of the Post and its sale into context. It also presents the facts of the sale in a cogent, readable fashion. Well done, even though I am bereft....

-- "You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1980!" hahahaha. 1980. sheesh. But I like the comparisons and the voice. It's not great writing, but the voice and energy carries this little piece about how good kids have it now, compared to the '80s, written by a thirty-something.

And on and on. I hadn't realized that I'd gathered such an eclectic mix on this board until I looked at it of-a-piece today. You can see them all, right here, along with each pin's description, from"Meeting Joan Didion" in The Paris Review to a review of the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics in London, to a video clip of Petula Clark singing "Fill the World With Love" in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (and my assessment of how this is great storytelling).

I guess I'll keep it up. Every time I find one of these gems, I learn something. And that's the whole point. I am ever the student.

ncte, stories, and song

I posted this note to my facebook author page -- I just discovered I had a "write a note" function -- who knew? -- so I practiced. I want to put it here on the blog as well. I'm not sure how I will end up using the fb author page along with the blog... I'm experimenting.

This is my last week home before the last of the year's travel. 2013 is coming to an end. I'll be in the D.C. area for a few days next week, and then in Boston for NCTE. I'm signing Countdown at Scholastic's booth on Friday (Nov. 22) from 3 to 4. There may be a little sneak-peek giveaway for Revolution, at my signing... wheee! I love watching a new book being born.

I speak at NCTE on Saturday at 2:45 as part of a panel called "Meaningful Literacy Learning With Short Texts: An Inch Wide and a Mile Deep." I'm working with two amazing (truly) Mercer University professors, Jane West and Emilie Paille. I'm so looking forward to teaching with them -- I appreciate them including me and my "organic" way of teaching writing. They will couple it, in their seasoned way, with their expertise and strategies and we'll have what we think is a session with excellent tools for you to take back to your classroom, to teach writing. You'll find us in room 108 at the Hymes Convention Center (level one).

The leaves in Atlanta are showy and fall-y and drifiting in waves with every breeze that tugs them from the trees. The carpet below my feet is beginning to crunch. There is a fire now, almost every day, in the fireplace by my writing chair. Soups and stews and root vegetables are in constant rotation. Friends come to share food and fire and songs. We break out the banjo, the guitar, the melodica, the kazooo!, and laugh and send up another old tune.

Someone -- a young college student whose grandma has just died -- suddenly lifts his voice in harmony to an old Methodist hymn. Everyone in the room, without moving or uttering one spoken word, gathers that young man's heart together and brings it to the center of our attention, in that ancient, communal embrace of song.

I want to take that feeling with me into the world today.

my wacky, beloved SIBA is at it again

Wanda Jewell, Nicky Leone, and the good folks at SIBA -- the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance -- are at it again. Here is "What's a book? Why a book? Three dozen authors read from Lane Smith's popular story 'It's a Book!' (Macmillan Publishers) about the advantages of (print) books. Recorded at the 2013 SIBA Trade Show in New Orleans."

Love.