Writer Resources

Earlier this year, Apple unveiled iTunes U, a vast collection of free courses to download for Apple devices.

Here’s more about the massive collection: “Learn a new language. Study Shakespeare. Discover the cosmos. It’s all possible on iTunes U, home to more than 500,000 free lectures, videos, books, and other resources on thousands of subjects. Among the hundreds of colleges, universities, and elementary and high schools on iTunes U, you’ll find Stanford, Yale, MIT, Oxford, and UC Berkeley, along with other distinguished institutions such as MoMA, New York Public Library, and more.”

We’ve been exploring the courses over the last few weeks, uncovering ten free courses for writers and readers can download right now. Topics range from zombies to Tolkien studies to creative writing; the free courses are offered by major institutions like Stanford and Oxford.

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Create a clear, strategic approach to the way you use Facebook to market your business in our new Facebook Marketing Boot Camp. The online conference and workshop starts April 24. Learn more.

We are proud to be on Technorati’s list of the top ten book sites online.

We join a host of great sites, blogs that this GalleyCat editor reads every single day. Technorati currently tracks 16,814 book-related websites.

Below, we’ve linked to the top ten book sites–explore these online destinations for more literary inspiration. (Via Alan Meckler)

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Forbes has joined a group of 30 clients using Narrative Science software to write computer-generated stories.

Here’s more about the program, used in one corner of Forbes‘ website: “Narrative Science has developed a technology solution that creates rich narrative content from data. Narratives are seamlessly created from structured data sources and can be fully customized to fit a customer’s voice, style and tone. Stories are created in multiple formats, including long form stories, headlines, Tweets and industry reports with graphical visualizations.”

The New York Times revealed last year that trade publisher Hanley Wood and sports journalism site The Big Ten Network also use the tool. In all, 30 clients use the software–but Narrative Science did not disclose the complete client list.

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While reading Cormac McCarthy‘s stark and post-apocalyptic novel The Road, blogger Barry Weber couldn’t find a definition for the word “salitter” from the book.

Weber did more research into McCarthy’s cosmic vocabulary, and discovered the word buried in a 17th Century mystical text. What’s the most exotic word you ever discovered in a novel?

Here’s more from the post: “Salitter seems only to have occurred, used in this way, in the writings of Jakob Boehme, a 17th century German Christian mystic. Here is enough of what he says about it, to begin to understand the exquisite choice made by McCarthy in using the word: ‘What is in Paradise is made of the celestial Salitter… [it] is clear, resplendent … The forces of the celestial Salitter give rise to celestial fruits flowers, and vegetation.’ Salitter, as used by Boehme, as used by McCarthy, is the essence of God.”

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You may find yourself at some point (as this GalleyCat editor did last week) in an unfamiliar city searching for a mailbox for your letter or manuscript.

If you need to find a mailbox, simply visit the free Mailbox Map site. You can search for FedEx drop boxes, UPS stores and simple mailboxes near your address–the site will generate a Google Map showing all the mailboxes around you.

Writers around the world are taking the Month of Letters Challenge this month. To keep the letter-writers in the audience motivated in February, we are posting letter writing resources, tools and inspiration.

How do you stay positive despite all the rejection and frustrations of the writing life?

Today’s guest on the Morning Media Menu was Amy Spencer, author of Bright Side Up: 100 Ways to Be Happier Right Now. She shared advice for all the struggling writers in the audience, explaining how we can persevere in the face of rejection.

Spencer explained: “It’s our passion. Some people grow up and live an entire lifetime without having a passion. They can’t figure out what they want to do, they try to do different things, but nothing really clicks in their soul. As hard as writing can be, it is worth remembering that you have something you know you are passionate about … I would rather being this than hiking to some particular job in some particular office, doing something that didn’t feed my soul in any way at all.”

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Even if you don’t have an account, the image-based social network Pinterest has hundreds of virtual pinboards loaded with inspiring content for readers and writers.

Below, we’ve collected ten Pinterest boards for book lovers. If you are interested in joining the network, check out our Pinterest Tips for Writers post.

Here’s more abut the network: “Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.”

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Wish you could save your handwritten notes or letters in a digital format? Try using the Evernote app to preserve digital copies of your handwritten material.

Simply install the free app and snap a smartphone picture of your next letter–Evernote will save a copy of your letter into a cloud-based server. Follow these links to download the free app for your mobile device: iOS or Android or Blackberry orWindows Phone 7.

Check it out: “Evernote helps millions worldwide remember anything and everything that happens in their lives. Use Evernote to take notes, save interesting web pages, create to-dos and shopping lists, attach images and PDFs, and so much more. Then, watch as it all instantly synchronizes from your Mac to your smartphone, tablet and the Web, allowing you to find your memories at any time from anywhere.”

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Can writing letters change your life? Over at the Save Snail Mail blog, a writer named Dana explained how her mail-focused blog improved different aspects of her writing life.

Check it out: “When I started this blog only a year ago, I don’t think I had any idea that I could truly transform my mailbox experience so drastically … with a lot of help from my fellow letter writers and mail artists, of course! What a lovely rebirth I’ve experienced–writing letters to people who write back, meeting new people from varied backgrounds, digging more deeply into my creative talents and coming up with some great art I didn’t know I had in me.”

Writers around the world are taking the Month of Letters Challenge in February. To keep the letter-writers in the audience inspired, we are posting letter writing resources, tools and inspiration.

This month, Harper’s Magazine excerpted a portion of The Lifespan of a Fact, a book reproducing email debates between John D’Agata and Believer fact-checker Jim Fingal.

As Fingal struggled to fact-check D’Agata’s “What Happens There” essay for The Believer, the author made passionate arguments about the nature of facts in essays. What do you think–should essay writers be able conflate events or conduct casual interviews?

Here is one argument from D’Agata: “I don’t think readers will care whether the events that I’m discussing happened on the same day, a few days apart, or a few months apart. What most readers will care about, I think, is the meaning that’s suggested in the confluence of these events—no matter how far apart they occurred. The facts that are being employed here aren’t meant to function baldly as ‘facts.’ Nobody is going to read this, in other words, in order to get a survey of the demographics of Las Vegas or what’s scheduled on the community calendar. Readers can get that kind of information elsewhere.”

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