A Word to the Wise (Writer)

Wow!  I really needed this:

Prestige is especially dangerous to the ambitious. If you want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, the way to do it is to bait the hook with prestige. That's the recipe for getting people to give talks, write forewords, serve on committees, be department heads, and so on. It might be a good rule simply to avoid any prestigious task. If it didn't suck, they wouldn't have had to make it prestigious.

Prestige + money?  Even more disastrous.  Read essayist and programmer Paul Graham's whole piece--about doing the work you actually love and not getting sidetracked along the way--here. 

Graham also has a very smart new piece on why meetings suck so profoundly for creative workers (like writers), while manager-types seem to love them.  Amen.  Go here to read it.  Then send the link to your chair/boss/supervisor.

In happy news, the lovely Meri Nana-ama Danquah's new edited collection, The Black Body (Seven Stories), is now available for pre-order.  Andres Solomon writes:

This singularly brave book recounts with poignancy, wit, and fierce passion the ways that Americans, black and white, have come to understand the black body. These are exquisite stories of what it is to see, and love, and to be seen, and be loved. They make an utterly compelling collection.

Good luck, Meri!  And congratulations!