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Jun 4
What Kind of Young Writer Were You?

In high school, I fancied myself the trippy beatnik 21st-Century version of James Joyce who would write The Great American Private Detective Epic Poem.

I filled up endless notebooks with crazy stories that still make me giggle, but I learned all the skills that, for better or for worse, have kept me writing today.

New York Observer book editor Alec Niedenthal who just published in the pages of the New York Times Book Review.

It got me thinking fondly about my high school notebooks. I'll bet you have some pretty funny stories about growing up as a writer. Tell me about it in the comments: What kind of young writer were you?

Here's the original letter: "Mr. Editor, well, we’ve been whiling away for a long time, persisting on raw fish and Red Bull in the frozen caverns of the blogosphere; and we don’t mean to boast, but, to be perfectly honest, we think you’ll be more than impressed. We’re standing beneath the adit of our long-desolate cave, proffering a sheaf of papers that you might consider a manuscript."

 


2 Comments/Trackbacks




I was a angsty bitter poet and a horoscope writer. My friends and I frequented some local open mic poetry nights and fancied ourselves counter-culture hipster artsy types. I don't write poetry much anymore, probably because I don't really like reading it and the open mics I attend are more adult and music inclined.

I was a hideously bad poet back then, but could write a mean essay. Unfortunately, I considered myself a good poet at the time. As for young Mr. Niedenthal, I have no doubt he's talented, but reading his letter also makes me think he could use a Strunk & White boot camp. He's got the classic gifted young writer's love of using $10 words where $1 words would suffice.

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