Farrar, Straus & Giroux’s Work in Progress site has excerpted the first story from A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories, the newly released collection of short fiction by the late Lucia Berlin–who died in 2004, and was largely overlooked while she was alive. In the book’s foreword, author Lydia Davis writes, “Perhaps, with the […]
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Posted inNonfiction, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
Marilynne Robinson on Writing and Discipline
INTERVIEWER Do you keep to a schedule? ROBINSON I really am incapable of discipline. I write when something makes a strong claim on me. When I don’t feel like writing, I absolutely don’t feel like writing. I tried that work ethic thing a couple of times—I can’t say I exhausted its possibilities—but if there’s not […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Quotes
Phoebe Gloeckner on ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl’ and the Women of Juarez
At The Rumpus, Whitney Joiner recently interviewed Phoebe Gloeckner, author of The Diary of a Teenage Girl, the controversial illustrated novel about a girl who loses her virginity to her mother’s boyfriend, originally published in 2002, and just made into a feature film. It was the second time Gloeckner sat down with Joiner—a senior features […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
E.L. Doctorow: 1931-2015
INTERVIEWER Isn’t there an enormous temptation as a fiction writer to take scenes out of history, since you do rely on that so much, and fiddle with them just a little bit? DOCTOROW Well, it’s nothing new, you know. I myself like the way Shakespeare fiddles with history; and Tolstoy. In this country we tend […]
Posted inNonfiction
Space Art Propelled Scientific Exploration of the Cosmos—But Its Star is Fading Fast
The huge, hidden cost to severing the bond between art and science.
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction, Story
Falling in Love with Words: The Secret Life of a Lexicographer
Merriam-Webster lexicographer Kory Stamper describes how she fell in love with words and offers a peek into the complex process of making dictionaries.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
Playing with History: What Sid Meier’s Video Game Empire Got Right and Wrong About ‘Civilization’
Twenty-five years ago, Meier turned human history into a video game, and sold 33 million copies along the way. With the launch of Civilization VI, Kanishk Tharoor takes a closer look at its impact.
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Quotes
When Blondes Go Wrong
After I found out about the Blonde Fury, I thought I’d better colour my hair again. I bought the dye at the same drugstore where I’d bought the pregnancy test, only this time its shelves were half vacant. There was an inventory girl with dark blueberry hair who stood in front of the selection with […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Quotes
The Weirdness of Near-Future America
You, Little Sylvia, will come up knowing the truth, but to the rest of the world–to jellyfishes, crackers, finkies, and swells, to Bosom families and Consolidated alike–the stars are not real. The planets are not real. Astronomy, if spoken of al all, is regarded as a delusional cult scarcely more respectable than the Jesus Lovers. […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
Truther Love
Uncovering the dating habits of conspiracy theorists and the challenges they face.
