a culture of language and thought

What exactly is “literary merit”? And how is it defined? More importantly, who defines it?
These thoughts have been swimming around my head for months now, in part after the ALTA Conference in Pasadena, where I found the divisions/strata/hierarchy of profs versus poetry translators versus literary translators versus pulp fiction translators versus commercial translators almost more [...]

In a few short minutes I’ll be jumping in the car, off to the airport and winging my way to Pasadena, California for the American Literary Translators Association annual conference. I’ll be giving a workshop with Lisa Dillman on Defining and Capturing Style on Friday, November 13 from 3:00 to 4:15 pm, and sitting on [...]

For the past several weeks, I’ve been finishing a novel translation for HarperCollins. As each day passes, and the delivery date draws closer, my anxiety level rises higher, reaching Mount Everest proportions. (At this point, apologies are in order to everyone who had to deal with me, particularly Jon who had to *live* with me.) [...]

This year I have been contributing a regular column to Diálogos Online Magazine, a wonderful publication put out by a colleague, Martin Boyd, in Toronto. The latest issue has just gone live, so please do hop on over and check it out. Martin’s editorial addresses the growing influence of Hispanics on Canadian life, the feature [...]

I had an interesting conversation last night with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. Phil asked what I was up to in terms of work, and I told him I have a deadline looming… A book translation I’ve been working on for about four months now is due toward the end of September, so [...]

As you might have noticed, my website has undergone some very slight changes… Or perhaps I should really call them updates. Because of my RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury), I had let things slide. A book I translated came out last fall (Everything Under the Sky), but I never managed to send out an announcement, update [...]

It used to be I would have to get up in the morning and immediately sit down at my desk to begin work. If I went out or did anything else first, it was as if the whole day would slip away on me and literally nothing would get accomplished. This may have something to [...]

It was April 1 of last year, about eleven o’clock at night, when I sat back down at my desk after dinner and a show with my partner Jon to make a few notes about things I needed to do the following day. Ping! As I picked up a pen, something in the middle finger [...]

I’ve been thinking about the concept of balance for quite a while now – and I do mean “concept” because it’s something I understand but is still somewhat ethereal, something I’ve never quite mastered. When I look back on my working life I’ve always juggled several things at once. The reasons for doing this have [...]

It’s January, so everyone’s talking about resolutions. My partner, Jon, and a group he belongs to chose to call them intentions and I kind of prefer this… Resolutions sound so, well, resolute and that approach doesn’t always work for me. When I inevitably fail to stick with one or more of the many “resolutions” I set [...]