Curmudgeon Time
& two years ago, two new books
Today’s post is one half curmudgeon catalog of three prevalent usage gaffes and one half two-year anniversary hurrah for Love in the Time of Time’s Up and Please Be Advised: A Novel in Memos.
Two submission opportunities:
- New American Press Poetry Prize (full-length collections): $1500 cash prize, 25 copies, and promotional support. Submission period is September 1 - January 15, 2025.
- The Maine Review is open for prose and poetry submissions through November 30. (Re submission fees: “We are a nonprofit organization and ask writers to pay a $3 fee per submission, of which we receive $1.86. This fee directly supports our authors, editors, and programs, and helps cover Submittable costs. If this submission fee is a barrier, please email info@mainereview.com for a link to a fee-waived submission. No explanation is needed. *Please do not email us your submission.*”)
Bookish subscriptions are discounted through the month. A preview of October’s agent list can be accessed here. Any upcoming renewals can be changed to the discounted rate if you originally subscribed at a higher rate. (Open your list of Substack newsletter subscriptions, click on Bookish, and the relevant information should appear.)
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Having taught a variety of college writing courses since the mid-90s, I’ve encountered some literary whoppers and whopper juniors in my pedagogical travels.
I’m not exempt from occasional whopper-making myself (nor would anyone ever accuse me of sending typo-free emails).
Below are a few common usage errors that drive me a little 🦇💩.
* It is “home in” (i.e. like a homing pigeon). It’s often misstated as “hone in.” (You hone a sword or a verbal parry. As a transitive verb, it requires a direct object.)
* It is “based on,” not “based off of.” (I hear ”based off of” used in conversations on news programs and well regarded podcasts by people who should know it’s incorrect, but my hunch is, because this error is so common, as is "home v. hone,” it’s essentially been normalized.)
* Mass nouns v. count(able) nouns: this mistake is so ingrained, it’s no wonder it’s ubiquitous. It should be 15 items or fewer. “Items” is a countable noun, i.e. you can individually number it. Traffic, for example, is a mass noun, as is time, but cars and hours, days, weeks, etc. are countable: less traffic/fewer cars and less time/fewer days.
Hokay, got that off my chest!
**
October is a notable month for me book-wise. Two years ago on October 4, Tortoise Books, an indie press based in Chicago, published a short fiction anthology I edited, Love in the Time of Time’s Up. It includes work by Jenny Shank, Lynn Freed, Gina Frangello, Joan Frank, May-lee Chai, Rebecca Entel, Amina Gautier, Cris Mazza, Karen E. Bender, Elizabeth Crane, Alison Umminger, Rachel Swearingen, Victoria Patterson, and Roberta Montgomery. (I also have a story in it.)
Two weeks after Love in the Time…’s release, 7.13 Books, a Brooklyn-based indie helmed by Leland Cheuk, published my novel Please Be Advised (edited by Kurt Baumeister).
From Love in the Time of Time’s Up:
And a sample memo from Please Be Advised:
If you read or have read these books and are able to post a review of any length on Goodreads and Amazon, hooray! (and thank you). Books on these sites apparently attract more eyeballs the more often they’re reviewed.
Happy anniversary.
Nice Bookish spirits.
Happy anniversary! I might say “based off of” in conversation but use “based on” in writing lol