I'm asked a lot of questions in the blogging classes I teach for The Loft Literary Center, but one I'm rarely asked is, "How do I know when it's time to shut down my blog?" It is perhaps the toughest question to answer. It's also critical. If you just go by software registrations, there are …
Continue reading 5 Reasons Why I’m Ending The Artist’s Road Blog
It's somewhat odd, sharing my thoughts on a novel via social media when that novel highlights the dark fate that can befall us when we become too enamored with sharing our thoughts online. That's how I opened my Goodreads review of Dave Eggers' The Circle. That review was automatically posted to my Facebook and Twitter …
Continue reading Social Media Dystopia: A Review of Dave Eggers’ The Circle
I've owned a personalized domain name (patrick-ross.com) for about fifteen years, but have done little with it during that time. For the past four years I have focused on this free WordPress site instead. But with Committed: A Memoir of the Artist's Road publishing this October, I knew it was time to do something with …
Continue reading Road to Publication: Questions to Ask Before Building an Artist Website
Repeat after me: We are not Facebook's customers; we are their product. This sentence has been in my head ever since first noticing the kerfuffle surrounding Facebook in the wake of the publication of an article documenting how--prepare to be shocked--the company conducted experiments on how they presented our news feeds to see if they …
Continue reading Internet Companies Don’t Serve Us; They Sell Us
On what topics would an eighth grader blog? Anything and everything, I've learned. During an all-day creative writing workshop I conducted with about forty students at Henrico County Public Schools' Elko Middle School, I read student writings on everything from football to indie music, from wrestling to baking. I also read a powerful "open letter" …
BOSTON -- One emotion I have always felt at the AWP creative writers conference is jealousy. Jealousy of the talent and success of the panelists and readers. Jealousy of the way so many writer attendees approach literary editors on the Bookfair floor without fear. But, mostly, jealousy of how so many attendees have made the …
Continue reading AWP Nugget: Hey Writers, Let’s Meet Up in Person in Seattle in 2014!
MONTPELIER, VERMONT -- "Who is your audience?" Ah, the age-old question. Vermont College of Fine Arts instructor Larry Sutin said in his lecture here at our MFA in Writing residency that he hears that question asked all the time, adding with his usual dry wit, "enough times that it must be a very important question." …
Continue reading MFA Nugget: Writing to the Reader, and More
MONTPELIER, VERMONT -- Allow me to take a moment to step out of the daily postings for a moment here with what I will generously call a bonus post, one that follows well with this morning's post on teaching creative writing. As some readers know, I've been exploring the possibility of providing the course I …
There has been a tremendous amount of digital ink spilled this week on the fall of writing wunderkind Jonah Lehrer, whose book Imagine: How Creativity Works, it was revealed this week, contains fabricated quotes of Bob Dylan. Lehrer's publisher has pulled the book. His employer, The New Yorker, has accepted his resignation. And people like …
Continue reading What Can We Learn from Nonfiction Writers Who Make Things Up?
I just spent a week "off the grid," disconnected from anyone not in my direct line of sight. I wasn't living alone in Arches National Park, the way Desert Solitaire author Edward Abbey did for a long summer in the late 1950s, but I read his tale while taking in the eerie quiet of a …
The Artist's Road 