After reading lists of people I should follow–lists of fiction and non-fiction writers–I came to the conclusion that there should be a list of poets to follow on Twitter.

Special thanks to the always-helpful @lonniehodge of OneManBandwidth.com and Pitchengine.com for doing most of the legwork on the list.

Check out his post on the many poets you can follow on Twitter. Unfortunately, most of the poets on Twitter do not actually post 140 character poems–but they are still interesting to connect with.

If you feel left out because you were not included in the list, leave your Twitter name here and we’ll try to add you to the next list.

Instead of providing a writing prompt this week, we are sharing a link that is too good to pass up. PoeWar has a wonderfully humorous article on writing poorly. Want to Write a Novel Badly? Here’s How! is very funny. Number 15 in the list reminds me of Seinfeld, which would probably make for a really bad novel (but I’m sure people would buy it anyway).

Disclaimer: If you submit novel excerpts that follow the advice of this post, you will receive a rejection letter–unless it’s tonguep-in-cheek and extremely funny.

Last month we discussed problems and benefits of getting a degree in writing. Today we want to apply this conversation to learning Mandarin.

My personal experience with learning Mandarin started with a move to China–I listened to a CD and picked up a phrase book (it helped me learn two very short phrases before arriving in China). My first job in China offered weekly classes, but those classes didn’t have a textbook and didn’t build on previous lessons to help me improve. I bought a few textbooks and studied on my own, asking for help from co-workers and restaurant staff. I’ve used a variety of resources, including Chinesepod and Rutgers University’s online Chinese lessons.

Some friends have enrolled in university classes in China with mixed results. As with any course, university Chinese classes depend on the instructor and classmates. The instructor may be great, but if the students don’t interact it can impede progress. And a group of enthusiastic students can lose out if the instructor isn’t passionate.

We want to know your experience with learning Mandarin. Have you taken classes or do you study on your own? Is there any one resource that has been especially helpful in your acquisition of Chinese?

Phrase for the day: 我自学中文三年，但是我并没有上过任何中文课。(wǒ zìxué zhōngwén sān nián, dànshì wǒ bìng méiyǒu shàng guò rènhé zhōngwén kè.)

I’ve been studying Chinese for three years, but I haven’t taken any classes.

We have decided to extend the competition for the copy of The Beijing of Possibilities by Jonathan Tel until the end of August. We want to ensure that we provide enough time for everyone to enter some quality writing.

Please don’t worry if you’re an international entrant. We will ship this book to the winner no matter where he/she resides.

Read the contest rules and get writing for your chance to win a book and get published in the next issue of Terracotta Typewriter. (view original post)

…a lot if you’re not careful about choosing your Chinese name.

In many tourist traps around China, they sell transliterated names in nice brush strokes–but they usually don’t provide the meaning of the characters. For example, the closest sound for Matthew in Chinese is 马修, which unfortunately translates to Horse to Repair. And forget about using your name if it happens to be Ben–using the wrong tone on that would mean stupid. There’s also a very good reason why most people named Peter will translate it to Bi te instead of Pi te–the latter could translate to special fart.

Of course, the same could be said for directly translating Chinese names to English. Many parents give their children meaningful names in Chinese that sound great when spoken, but they don’t quite work when translated. Plenty of women have names that mean beautiful (or a variation of such), and would be considered conceited if they used that as their English name.

Terracotta Typewriter would like everyone to carefully choose their names in Chinese and English. If possible, get a friend who is fluent in the language to help.