Monday, February 18, 2008

Present Magazine

The Kansas City Star ran a feature about Pete Dulin and Present Magazine, an online arts and culture magazine he co-founded in Kansas City.

According to reporter Timothy Finn, Dulin "conceived the idea about five years ago. His goal back then: combine his affection for music and the arts and his love for writing with his academic and professional backgrounds (publishing, marketing and food)."

“The basic concept was to cover subjects like food, music and culture in stories that were not being told in other publications or tell them in different ways,” Dulin said. “There was a lot going on that I thought people should know about.”

Orignally, Dulin had thoughts of being a sous chef, according to Finn.

“I decided culinary school would be too demanding,” Dulin says in the article, which continues:

"Instead he went to graduate school at Emerson College in Boston, where he focused on publishing and nonfiction writing — namely food writing."

Pub Equality/The Weekly Dig

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich has a column, "Pub Equality: Show the Ladies Some Love," in this week's The Weekly Dig.

It's a variation on a column she wrote for the column writing workshop this past fall. In it she recounts a recent visit to the Dublin Writers Museum (right after a visit to the Guinness brewery).

Expecting to be reminded of many of Ireland's "hard-drinking literary bad boys," she discovered a plethora of legendary Irish women writers.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

New Writing Gig + Take My Comics Writing Workshop

Just wanted to let any webcomics fans know that you can now read my mostly-weekly thoughts on the topic over at Webcomics.com. So far I've mostly discussed the potential effects of new technologies on the medium, such as eBook readers, software packages for reading webcomics, and new screen technologies. I also have some articles forthcoming on interesting creators and comics that have caught my eye.

Also, anyone whose thinking of about making comics of their own may be interested in the Comics Writing Workshop that I'll be teaching at The Cambridge Center for Adult Education this spring. It's a six-week course that starts in March. I taught this course last semester as well, and had a lot of fun doing it, so I'd love to see even more students signed up this time. You can register or get the full details here.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Acts of Kindness

Karl Wirsing's piece, "The Danger of 'Don't Talk to Strangers," appeared in Sunday's Washington Post.

The piece reminded me of a similar incident I still regret that occurred many years ago in New York City.

If you have a chance, read Karl's piece and think about what you migh have done in Karl's place. You can post your comments here.

Lockie Hunter Semifinalist in Amazon.com competition

[News from Lockie Hunter. There are a few days left to read the entries and post reviews.]




I am a semifinalist for the Amazon breakthrough novel award. (It was my thesis actually. They narrowed 5000 entrants to several hundred, and I was among them. The grand prize winner receives a publishing deal from Penguin books, and all the semi finalists will have their work critiqued by Publisher's Weekly. The judging is based on a combination of industry experts and public opinion. It is free to read the piece you simply type this in your browser. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00124COYI

On the right hand side of the page, you will see an orange "download for free" button. click on it, read the piece and then when you are done, go to the original link, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00124COYI

scroll to the bottom of all the reviews, including a rather nasty one from publisher’s weekly, sigh, gotta love the critics, and click “create your own review”. Then simply provide a review, with hopefully 4, 4.5 or 5 stars if you like it.

It would be huge to get as many critiques as possible to tip the scales and possibly make it to the next round. Oh, you do need to have an Amazon password, if you've ever purchased anything there, you should have one. Lastly, the piece ends mid-sentence. It stops at 5000 words. Weird, but those are the rules, so it's not an error.

Lockie

p.s. final reviews are due on Feb 17th!!!!!


CHEERS!

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

We are not Martha.


I wanted to let everyone know about a new website I recently launched with a friend of mine. It's called We are not Martha and is a culinary, design, and lifestyle website targeted at 20-somethings (but really for anyone!).

We've been having fun documenting our experiences cooking, hosting parties, trying new Boston restaurants, and more. We also just partnered with the guys over at 2 Guys Uncorked who pair all of the dishes we make with a deliciously appropriate wine.

Come check it out and let me know what you think! Hope you're all doing well :)

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Mike Nagel tricks someone into paying him...

Hey guys... little writing-related update for you here. I've currently taken a leave of absence from my job at STA Travel to work on my thesis with my adviser/slave-driver Prof. Seglin. I'm also trying out the whole "freelance writer" bit to see where that goes, if anywhere, which means I'll be updating my (*shameless plug*) blog more regularly, since I usually don't get rejections notices from myself.

But in more lucrative news, I have landed a small, regular gig, though. I'm now one of Good Catch Publishing 's pool of writers, which is exciting. GCP is a small, up-and-coming, Christian publishing house based out in Oregon. They are paid by churches or community groups (e.g. military units, fire houses, etc.) to publish books containing seven true stories of spiritual life changes, revelations or successes. It's kind of a neat idea and I get to play the role of journalist/interviewer/writer during the process. Good times...

Right now, most of their stories are not published online, but if that changes, I'll post links. If you want to buy autographed books, feel free to send a SASE to my agent.

Keep writing,
Mike

Monday, February 4, 2008

Hiring Freelance Writers/Editors

Interested in gaining freelance writing and/or editing experience? We need more young, hip folks at Experience.com (a career services site for college students & grads). We can't offer a ton of $$, but we do have fun assignments and opportunities, and we're a great place to start or gain ground as a freelancer.

Please send me a resume and writing sample to Andrea Calabretta, acalabretta@experience.com.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Trailing Andy Lin


Column writing alum and t-shirt impresario, Andy Lin (see photo at left), is featured as the rider on Rails To Trails' Trail of the Month for February.

It's Washington's Burke-Gilman Trail.

You can read all about Andy's biking adventure and even catch a glimpse of him standing next to his seven-speed cruising bike that he picked up on Craig's List.

Karl Wirsing, the managing editor for Rails To Trails Magazine did the interview.