Category: Fiction Writing

Fiction Writing, Films, Literary Translation, Writing

New Words #16: Literary AND Commercial?!

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A couple of years ago, at an online event about breaking into literary translation, the Q&A went off the rails for a reason I found wildly amusing. An attendee asked about “finding the right balance between literary and commercial translation.” The panelists then spoke about “finding the right balance between literary and commercial translation.” But the question and the answer did not match up.

Here’s what happened. . . . Read the rest of this post (for free! nothing is paywalled!) over on Substack.

Articles, Fiction Writing, Literary Translation, Recommendations, Translation, Writing

New Words #5: A Pep Talk for Everyone Except the Late Muriel Spark

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I invite you to get the new year off to a hilarious start by watching Muriel Spark describing her creative process in this 35-second interview clip, which makes me howl with laughter and/or frustration every time I watch it.

I can’t be the only one who finds that video maddening. Are we really supposed to believe Muriel Spark would just sit down, write a book, and then be done writing the book?

a GIF of Frollo from Disney’s animated The Hunchback of Notre Dame shouting, “Witchcraft!”

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Books, Dialogue, Fiction Writing, French, Language Acquisition, Recommendations, Translation, Writing

New Words #3: Bonjour monsieur !

lnlanguage

Even if you’ve never taken a French class in your life, you know what “bonjour” and “monsieur” mean, so go ahead and translate “Bonjour monsieur.” I’ll just wait here.

Great. If you gave it a try, thank you for indulging me, but unfortunately there is one (and only one!) correct answer: “I’m not translating this until I get more context. GIVE ME MORE CONTEXT.”

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Books, Fiction Writing, Links, Literary Translation, Podcasts, Recommendations, Translation, Writing

New Words #1: Rejection, Shmejection

lnlanguage

Welcome to New Words, a newsletter about writing, translation, and language acquisition.

I am a freelance writer and translator, an adult language learner, and a former high school world language teacher, which means that these topics are inescapably intertwined in my career and creative pursuits. This newsletter is intended to offer a peek behind the scenes as I work, and I hope it will appeal to folks who are interested in blurring the lines between these fields: writers and language teachers curious about translation, for instance, or translators wondering whether to pursue an interest in teaching or writing.

To get us started, I’ll share a bit today about how my experience as a translator prompted me to reengage with fiction writing.

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