The Morning News

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Currently: Padgett Powell's latest makes struggling with questions look easy. http://tmne.ws/14295
1 day ago
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Michael Erard

Writer Michael Erard lives in Austin with his wife and a catahoula that climbs in the bathtub when it rains. His reporting on language and other topics has appeared, among other places, in the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, and the Texas Observer. His book about spontaneity and accidents in talking, Um…: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean, comes out this month from Pantheon. For more, go to www.umthebook.com.

In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word Was “Um”

Many hear verbal stumbles as a lack of eloquence—or worse, intelligence. However, explains MICHAEL ERARD, there’s a new love and respect for our little hesitations. (Op-Ed | August 9, 2007)

Chicken

Don’t know art but know what you like? How would you like to buy some art and never receive it? MICHAEL ERARD falls for a painting, then gets something unexpected in return. (Personal Essays | December 5, 2006)

Foolish Chances With Words

Laptops making writing easy to produce, and easy to erase. At least with typewriters you’re creating something that, however terrible, lives in the world. MICHAEL ERARD’s remembrance for the dented Olympia of his youth. (Personal Essays | March 15, 2006)


TODAY’S FEATURE

Test Post

Rather than shopping or a pottery workshop, blogging shows promise as a fun, “couple-y” activity. THE GOLEM writes the entry that took a thousand years.

OUR MAN IN BOSTON

Question, Questions, Questions?

Padgett Powell's bebop solo of a book is 164 pages of interrogatory--that's right, questions.

INFINITE SUMMER

Dracula

Sponsored by TMN, the online book club reads the vampire novel that sired them all.
» READ ALONG

TMN TALKS

Abhay Khosla

Abhay Khosla is a regular contributor to The Savage Critics, a review of comic books. He’s made a foray into writing comics, and his absurdist,...