Byliner

For this week, we were to choose three different writers to follow on Byliner.com and explain why we chose them.

First, I followed Mark Bittman, New York Times food columnist (the Minimalist) and author of How To Cook Everything and more recently The Food Matters Cookbook. I've always liked Bittman's recipes and find food writing an interesting field. Usually, it's limited to food critics, but writers like Bittman, the constantly growing popularity of foodie blogs, and columns like Grub Street from NY Magazine (my personal favorite) are diversifying the field of food writing. Recently I heard Bittman speak and he talked about sustainability and how the American diet is killing us, a topics he writes about in The Food Matters Cookbook, which blends economic, political and social commentary with recipes.

Next, I chose to follow Malcolm Gladwell, a writer I'd often heard about (and I believe read once, but I can't recall what) but never really looked further into. I'm glad I did. Through Byliner, I started reading Damaged, first published in the New Yorker in 1997, about a man standing trial for multiple racially based crimes.

Finally, I followed Dave Eggers, simply because I love him. I think A Heartbreaking Work

of Staggering Genius is one of my favorite books and McSweeney's one of my favorite websites. I really enjoy the way he blends the comedic and mundane aspects of quite serious, even tragic events, something I try to emulate in my own writing.