don’t you want to be Maria Popova?
Maria Popova
How about Curator of Interestingness, then? So cool! And I’m a little jealous. Even if Popova made up the title and gave it to herself, take a look through her website (Brain Pickings) and I think you’ll agree the title is pretty accurate. It’s a website you can get lost in, full of all kinds of interesting (of course) and creativity related information, material, and links.
My favorite part of Brain Pickings so far is literary jukebox, which features a “quote from a favorite book, thematically matched with a song.” Some of the quotes are long; others are quite short. I like the pairing of this short quote about change from Henry Miller with the song “Change is Hard,” by She and Him.
You can sign up to receive Brain Pickings’ free weekly newsletter. One recent issue features an article about why writers write, composed of excerpts from an essay by Joy Williams. Nicely timed with National Novel Writing Month. The current issue includes a piece titled What Will Survive of Us Is Love: Helen Dunmore’s 9 Rules of Writing. Rule No. 1: Finish the day’s writing when you still want to continue.
Popova was named one of the top 100 creative people in business in 2012 by Fast Company. She also writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic, and several other publications and edits Explore, “a discovery engine for meaningful knowledge, fueled by cross-disciplinary curiosity.”
The Brain Pickings and Explore websites each have an entirely different look and feel, but both are appealing and very nicely designed.
Sadly, although I would love to be Maria Popova and to have invented a career as Curator of Interestingness, I would not love to take on her daily work schedule, which is a real bear. So I’ll continue stumbling around in the world of interestingness, keep tuning in to the literary jukebox, and admire Ms. Popova from afar. Or from Twitter or Facebook. Maybe both.
Who would you like to be?
give me a daisy 