A Teach Me How To Dewey production

The Rundown:

• 070 Journalism, and newspapers
• 071 Newspapers in North America
• 072 Newspapers in British Isles; in England
• 073 Newspapers in central Europe; in Germany
• 074 Newspapers in France & Monaco
• 075 Newspapers in Italy & adjacent islands
• 076 Newspapers in Iberian Peninsula & adjacent islands
• 077 Newspapers in eastern Europe; in Russia
• 078 Newspapers in Scandinavia
• 079 Newspapers in other geographic areas

Extra! Extra! Get your papes heeya, Jack Kelly. We continue along the general theme of writing, books, and cultural institutions with The Newspaper in all its storied, soon-to-be-antiquated glory. While I was disappointed not to find a comprehensive history of that classic 1992 Disney musical/bad-accent-party Newsies, I found a lot of books on journalism or by journalists, along with (diving back into meta-ness) a lot on writing and publishing and the challenges therein, which actually seem to be good resources for aspiring authors. Once again, the books in my library were limited almost exclusively to two digits (070 and 071); apparently Scandinavian newspapers don’t fit within the the collection purview of a Midwestern public library.

As a writer myself, I struggle with how much writing about writing I should read. On the one hand it’s helpful to learn how other seemingly successful writers struggle through the quotidian difficulties of the writing life. On the other hand, it’s easy to get bogged down in reading about writing and not actually get your own writing done. It’s the same thing with the modern trends of “lifehacking” and productivity: so many new apps and web tools make promises of increased productivity and streamlined life, but when I focus so much on the tools themselves I get fixated on the tool instead of the product it’s supposed to help create.

Or maybe I’m overthinking it.

The Dew3:

What Kind of Loser Indie Publishers? And How Can I Be One, Too?
By Pamela Fagan
Dewey: 070.593 HUT
Random Sentence: “Did you just throw up a little in your mouth?”

Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writer’s Life
By Michael Greenberg
Dewey: 070.92 GRE
Random Sentence: “Purged of empathy, I joined in the protective cynicism of the courthouse employees.”

Red Blood & Black Ink: Journalism in the Old West
By David Dary
Dewey: 071 DAR
Random Sentence: “That’s just the way with juries – they think it no more wrong to shoot an editor than a Jack-rabbit.”