Posts for Tag: writing

On the verge of war

Steven Spender reports a conversation with T.S. Eliot in 1939 via Diaries of Note

About writing, he said that it was very important that one should, at all costs, go on writing now. ‘It doesn’t seem to me to matter very much whether one isn’t able to do anything very good. The important thing is to keep going. Probably it’s impossible to do excellent work while things are so disturbed.’
 
 I mentioned that I hadn’t been able to work, so had started this journal. He said, ‘Yes, that’s an excellent idea. Just writing every day is a way of keeping the engine running, and then something good may come out of it.’

Op-Ed Columnist - The Sidney Awards - NYTimes.com

Every year, I give out Sidney Awards to the best magazine essays of the year. In an age of zipless, electronic media, the idea is to celebrate (and provide online links to) long-form articles that have narrative drive and social impact.

I don't remember following The Sidney Awards from David Brooks, but this seems to be a remarkable list of essays and essayists that he's named. I need to track down the pieces he's named; you can see the nominations by clicking through for the original piece.

A second batch of awards was published on December 29.