by Jamie Chavez | Jan 16, 2016 | Miscellany
You’ve heard me say this before: I grew up in a home filled with books and magazines, music and musical instruments. I have known from my youth that exposure to this made a huge difference in my intellectual life. (That I cared about having an intellectual life at all...
by Jamie Chavez | Apr 20, 2015 | Words & Language, Your Editor Says …
I have some bad news for you. You’ve been using that phrase wrong. I’ve had friends and colleagues use it wrong—in writing—and I have bitten my tongue, because, as you know, I am not a corrector unless I’ve been asked to be one. But I recently read it in Roxane Gay’s...
by Jamie Chavez | Mar 21, 2015 | Your Editor Says …
I just sent back a first pass edit on a well-researched novel set in the Middle Ages. I can tell you this only because it rang true; the few facts I know about medieval life could dance on the head of a pin with room to spare for several angels. But I knew enough to...
by Jamie Chavez | Mar 14, 2015 | Your Editor Says …
No, really. I’m not. Not outwardly, not inwardly. Promise. The Old Editor Says … Edit to live, don’t live to edit.* It’s not your job to correct other people’s speech. It’s not your job to correct menus or public signage. It’s not your job, however much it may appeal...
by Jamie Chavez | Feb 28, 2015 | Miscellany
As you know, I’ve become interested in the nature of creativity and inspiration, and have written about it here several times—just this week, in fact.* Shortly after I wrote that post, I read an article by author Walter Isaacson in the October 2014 Vanity Fair … about...
