An elegy and reading list for Toni Morrison, the Nobel Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who died Monday, August 5, 2019.
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Posted inBooks, Profiles & Interviews, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
Happy Birthday, Toni Morrison
INTERVIEWER You mentioned getting permission to write. Who gave it to you? MORRISON No one. What I needed permission to do was to succeed at it. I never signed a contract until the book was finished because I didn’t want it to be homework. A contract meant somebody was waiting for it, that I had […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
Jennifer Nix on June Carter Cash’s Influence on Her Life
In our hotel room that night, I broke out “Press On” and we took turns listening to songs on my Discman. Johnny and June’s duet “The Far Side Banks of Jordan” visibly stirred my dad, and at song’s end he said, “I wonder which one will go first. The other won’t last long after that.” […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Toni Morrison on Why Writers Have Such a Hard Time Writing About Sex
Sex is difficult to write about because it’s just not sexy enough. The only way to write about it is not to write much. Let the reader bring his own sexuality into the text. A writer I usually admire has written about sex in the most off-putting way. There is just too much information. If you start saying “the curve of . . .” you soon sound like a gynecologist.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘The Muse Only Shows Up When You Put Your Ass in the Chair’
In my twenties I realized that the muse is a bum. The muse only shows up when you bait her by putting your ass in the chair. She can only be lured to your side by the sound of pounding keys, the smell of paper and ink. At some point (I imagine it was when […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
The Craft of Poetry: A Semester with Allen Ginsberg
An intimate recollection of a Beat legend.
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
The Craft of Poetry: A Semester with Allen Ginsberg
An intimate recollection of a Beat legend.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Longreads Member Pick: ‘A Semester with Allen Ginsberg,’ by Elissa Schappell
This week we’re excited to feature Elissa Schappell‘s essay, “The Craft of Poetry: A Semester with Allen Ginsberg,” as our Longreads Member Pick. Her recollections are an intimate window into the Beat legend. The piece originally appeared in the Summer 1995 issue of the Paris Review and was later anthologized in their 1999 collection Beat […]
Posted inUncategorized
Longreads Member Pick: 'A Semester with Allen Ginsberg,' by Elissa Schappell
This week we’re excited to feature Elissa Schappell‘s essay, “The Craft of Poetry: A Semester with Allen Ginsberg,” as our Longreads Member Pick. Her recollections are an intimate window into the Beat legend. The piece originally appeared in the Summer 1995 issue of the Paris Review and was later anthologized in their 1999 collection Beat […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
18 Deep Interviews with Great Writers
Kevin Smokler shares some of his favorite interviews.
