Saturday Sharing (My Finds Are Yours)

Today's edition of Saturday Sharing provides several links to several sites that will be of interest specifically to writers, including Writer's Voice; spotlights The British Newspaper Archive and the Visual Accent & Dialect Archive; and highlights a site devoted to the story of the "Peace Pilgrim", a woman who walked more than 25,000 miles over some 28 years to promote peace.

✦ A trove of historical newspapers that comprise The British Newspaper Archive is available to historians, researchers, and British history aficionados, courtesy of the British Library and brightsolid online publishing. Users may search news articles, family-related notices (births, marriages, deaths, etc.), letters to the editor, obituaries, and advertisements in the digital collection. Up to 8,000 digital images daily are being scanned. Nearly 4 million pages are already available for browsing; 40 million are expected to be digitized within the next 10 years.

BNArchive on Twitter 

✦ A series of 13- to 18-minute documentary-style programs, Mondays with Merce, about the life and extraordinary career of the late dancer-choreographer Merce Cunningham, is available online.

List of Episodes

✦ Last month, the Smithsonian's The Bigger Picture blog provided a link to the Visual Accent & Dialect Archive, which comprises a video archive of English-language accents and dialects from around the world. Including visual information (for example, gestural aspects of accent and dialect) on sound pronunciation, it's a marvelous resource for the theatre community and researchers, indeed, for anyone interested in the rhythms, intonations, and sound changes in various regions where English is spoken. If you have have an English-language accent or use a dialect, go here to learn how you can contribute a video recording for the archive. The site's Website was created and designed by the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities whose own site is worth browsing.

Here's a brief video explanation of the crowd-sourced archive:

✦ Writers will appreciate Language Is a Virus, which offers all kinds of writing exercises and games, articles, how-to information, interviews, and more. (My thanks to Diane Lockward for the link.)

✦ If you like interaction while on the Web, you might enjoy VISPO Langu(IM)age. You'll find there interactive audio, interactive music and poetry games, texts that "twitch", "color music", and visual poetry, among other site components. (The site requires Shockwave.)

✦ You'll find in-depth interviews with writers of all genres, conversations with editors, agents, publicists, and other publishing industry pros, author readings, news, writing and publishing tips, and commentary at Writer's Voice, a national radio show and podcast. Produced and hosted by Francesca Rheannon, an independent radio producer and broadcast journalist, Writer's Voice is broadcast weekly to radio stations around the country, with podcasting on the Web. Since 2004, more than 250 shows have aired; the archives are updated continually.

Free WV Podcasts at iTunes

Writer's Voice on Twitter

✦ Born in 1908 in New Jersey and named Mildred Lisette Norman, she walked coast to coast, border to border, more than 25,000 miles over 28 years, beginning January 1, 1953. Her purpose? To promote peace. Take an hour and watch Peace Pilgrim: An American Sage Who Walked Her Talk (the documentary also may be viewed in Spanish). Among the Peace Pilgrim's other accomplishments: She was the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail and was nominated formally in 1981 for the Nobel Peace Prize. World-famous, she died in July 1981, still on her pilgrimage.

Peace Pilgrim Website (There is a lot here to browse, read, explore.)

Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words (Entire Text Available)

Steps Toward Inner Peace by the Peace Pilgrim (Interviews are included here.)

Peace Pilgrim on YouTube

Friends of Peace Pilgrim on FaceBook