Update:
Well, I am so pleased to say that GWS finally got to 100 Twitter followers. It’s a lot of fun discussing great storytelling and to spotlight great writing; I can’t help but want to share my thoughts with more people.
Three folks entered the giveaway on the Facebook thread stickied at the top of the page:
(Wow, can you tell I have great MS Paint skillz?) Okay, so I’m going to Random.org. I will tell the little thingy to give me a number between 1 and 3. Here we go…
Congratulations to Ms. Robison!
Now that the first giveaway is over, I can think about the second. I have a bunch of paired books set aside and will set up another little contest soon.
Original Post:
Friends, GWS has only been around for a few months, but it’s been so heartening to get such a great response from readers and writers alike. I absolutely love that so many folks are finding my little essays on craft and I hope that the essays offer some food for thought.
I can’t help it: I want more people to come see my site! I need more cyberfriends to share my updates and comment on my essays and all that good stuff! I have no idea if this is going to work, but Oswego State had their yearly book sale and I managed to pick up some great books for cheap. Therefore, up for grabs in the first Great Writers Steal giveaway are these two cool books:
We can all use a little more Jamaica Kincaid in our lives! I will send the winner these two books. (I’d love to offer a monetary prize as a giveaway, but I make adjunct money and GWS is already a losing proposition in the financial sense.)
Here’s all you need to do to be eligible:
- Either “Like” Great Writers Steal on Facebook or follow Great Writers Steal on Twitter. (Or do both. That’s fine.)
- Share a Great Writers Steal essay with your friends, tweet a link, call them up on their cell phones…do something to interact with GWS in mind because a winner will be selected around the time when the site has 100 Twitter followers or 100 Facebook Likes. If new folks don’t hear about the site and don’t interact with it on social media, no one wins!
- Post some statement on the official “First-Ever Great Writers Steal Giveaway! Jamaica Kincaid!” Facebook thread. It’s stickied at the top of the GWS Facebook Page. It doesn’t matter what you post. “Entry” or “I’m in!” or “I hope I win the books!” I don’t care, because I am going to use a random number generator to award the books to one of the folks who makes a comment. I will then contact the winner and send them the books via USPS. Easy peasy.
Giveaway rules: come on, now. I have no money and I’m doing this out of the kindness of my heart. I make the final decision and stuff. I’m just a writer and a teacher trying to get more attention for his fun (and free) effort to share storytelling techniques with the world. I can change the rules at any time.
If this giveaway goes well, I have a bunch of other books ready to give away for additional milestones. Let’s see what happens!
Look forward to reading GWS
Just came across your blog and it’s got some great articles.
(off topic, though Zin did post a notice about the giveaway on Zoetrope, where lots of people get interested when you say things like “free books” - you might want to look around Zoetrope, it’s a cool place if you find the right offices. Ask Zin to show you around.)
Is there an MFA in the house? I need a technical consult…
There’s a particular style of writing which works for stories that mimic journalism. The first-person narrator has the role of reporter, or interviewer, and is outside the “plot” of the story, though all his observations of course are part of the reader’s experience of the story, which is substantially told as third person, since the first-person narrator is telling someone else’s tale.
I can’t think of an example other than in the works I’m trying to describe (Manuel Gonzales’ “The Artist’s Voice” and a bunch of the fake obits from his collection). It’s this combination of third-person-by-first-person that fascinates me, but it’s not like the Gatsby-style observer in that the first-person observer is truly an observer, not a participant. And it’s not really what’s traditionally referred to as “reportorial” style, because the first-person observer isn’t in the story at all for that.
Is there a technical word for this? I mean a real one, other than the ones I make up like “fictional journalism” (which is an awful term just on principle)?
Cool site! As a fellow writer, I am looking forward to learning what to steal.