EXTRA CRITICUM

Andy & Sam: Crowdsource This!

While researching actor and professional wrestler Andre the Giant, I came across this:

"As a child, he {Andre the Giant} displayed symptoms of his gigantism very early, reaching a height of 6'3" (190.5 cm) and weight of 240 pounds (110 kg) by age 12. Unable to fit on the school bus, he was driven to school by a neighbor, Nobel prize winning playwright and author Samuel Beckett."

This fired my imagination. If it fires yours perhaps you’d like to spend a minute and contribute a few words to this Extra Criticum  … thing.

Dennis Danziger on Amy Friedman's visit to Katie Couric's show

Really fun piece about EC pal Amy Friedman's long journey to appear on Katie Couric's daytime talk show to discuss her marriage to a prisoner and her wonderful memoir, Desperado's Wife.

 

The Untrained Eye

I just wrote a post on my own blog, titled Plight of the Avid Amateur, spurred by my quest to replace a broken camera.

You see, although I consider myself primarily a writer, my writing chronicles many of my adventures and, well, some things you just can't describe properly. You have to show them.

The Unwritten Word

I am an artist.

Do I have to say that?

Do I have to declare it?

How many people will enter my life, and ask me not to write about them?

Overcoming "Submission Aversion"

I'm not sure how it happened to me but at some point in the last ten years, I stopped submitting my work to places and people I didn't know. Well, not entirely. But virtually so.

I'm not sure if this shut-down can be attributed to battle fatigue induced by one too many rejections on the heels of another or if it has something to do with my work at the Dramatists Guild where I find myself spending more and more of my energy on a crusade of my own making to shake playwrights free of what I consider to be a misguided fantasy that sending a script to a literary department and waiting is somehow a key to something more than frustration.

So, here's the thing. A good friend of mine told me about a contest that seems very well suited to my most recent play -- my sprawling history play about the rise of young Teddy Kennedy. And last year, I missed the deadline. So this year, she very considerately called to remind me about it.