“They remind me of my heart’s desire…”

From a lovely essay about using notebooks, by Elaine Fletcher Chapman: Most writers I know work from notebooks. I carry mine with me, as Jason Shinder was known to advise, along with a folder of poems I am currently revising. Even on my shorter commutes, I carry the pair. They remind me of my heart’s [...]

Notebooks in Magazines

A few notebook mentions and images culled from magazines recently: First, from a New Yorker profile of playwright Annie Baker:   From a New Yorker article about Thom Yorke of Radiohead and Atoms for Peace:   A Smythson diary makes a cameo appearance in a fashion spread: This is truly spectacular: a collection of journal/scrapbook/sketchbooks [...]

A Theater Critic’s Notebook

Spotted in Time Out NY magazine: “…most nights I’m sitting on the aisle, craning forward and scrawling illegible fragments in my notebook.”

Moleskine Monday: The Detour Book

Brain Pickings offers a nice look inside a new book from Moleskine: The Detour Book, which I’m sure I’ll soon add to my ever-growing collection of books about notebooks and sketchbooks!   Read more at Moleskine Detour: Inside the Notebooks of Beloved Creative Icons | Brain Pickings.

Notebook Addict of the Week: Mark William Jackson

This week’s addict wrote a blog post called A Pile of Notebooks, including the photo and excerpt below: I love notebooks, I love the possibilities that a new notebook holds; the clean blank pages, the elastic band that holds it closed, the ribbon page marker. But, being an obsessive-compulsive, each entry would have to be [...]

Shateek Palmer: A Teenager Writing in Notebooks

A wonderful essay by Shateek Palmer, a young man who turned to writing to cope with a difficult life: The first time I ever wrote about my feelings was when my grandmother was placed in the hospital. I was 9 years old. I knew I had to be strong for her, so I wrote about [...]

Notebook Addict of the Week: Amy Ludwig Vanderwater

This week’s addict is a bit different, as I picked her because of the way she is addicted to other people’s notebooks, not just her own. Amy Ludwig Vanderwater blogs at Sharing Our Notebooks, which “highlights pages from a variety of notebooks: paper, digital, napkin, any kind [so readers can] learn how students, authors, artists, [...]

Notebook Addict of the Week: Cheryl Wright

This week’s addict was nominated by Jennie, who sent me a link to this great post: My Journals and Notebooks, by Cheryl Wright, who says “I collect journals like an addict. I see one, it calls my name and I can’t rest until I buy it.” Here’s some of her collection: Make sure you click [...]

In Praise of Notebook and Pen for Creative Writing

I enjoyed this article, which makes some great observations about writing in notebooks vs. on a computer, or even a typewriter: Everything I’ve ever written was composed in notebooks first. I have hundreds of them filled with my scribbles tucked away in boxes. I also buy them obsessively, so I probably have just as many [...]

Notebook Addict of the Week: Cacy

This week’s addict posted a photo of this lovely shelf on her blog:   Cacy asks: Are you a pen-and-paper person? Or do you go straight to the computer and start tp-tp-tptptp-ing away? Me? I love a good notebook. What is it about the chaos of keeping my ideas in barely legible writing across a [...]