LE GUIN: My mother had always wanted to write. She told me this only after she’d started writing. She waited until she got the kids out of the house, until she was free of responsibility for anybody except her husband. Very typical of her generation. She was in her fifties when she started writing—for kids, […]
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Posted inBooks, Fiction, First Chapters, Story
First Chapter: Dave Eggers’ Novel, ‘Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?’
“We know each other, Kev. From way back. And I didn’t want to bring you here like this.”
Posted inNonfiction
Science, Chance, and Emotion with Real Cosima
Through her work on clone-thriller Orphan Black, science consultant Cosima Herter has helped open our eyes to the possibilities and perils of synthetic biology and the pursuit of genetic perfection.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Lorrie Moore on the Difficulties of Constructing a Writing Life
In The Paris Review, the celebrated writer reveals the struggles of creativity.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘My Brain Was Changed Forever’
And, I found, I could not lie. I could not write fiction. So instead I wrote the truth. I started an anonymous blog on which I chronicled my stroke recovery as a writer. It connected me to friends that I have to this day. I became an introvert. I learned to protect my energy, something […]
Posted inUncategorized
‘Alice Munro Writes So Well About Secrets’
Then he had things to tell her about himself. The fact that he had produced a condom did not mean that he was a regular seducer. In fact, she was only the second person he had gone to bed with, the first being his wife. He had been brought up in a fiercely religious household […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Cop Movies, Race, and Ferguson
Nonetheless, whenever I see masked and helmeted police in photographs and movies or on the street going after protesters, I wonder, as I did during a battle royal between peasants and cops in the summer’s class-war sleeper Snowpiercer: “Who are these hidden people?” It crosses my mind anytime I see a helmet swing a nightstick […]
Posted inFiction, Quotes
What Happens When the Internet Takes Over Your Home: Virus Edition
I wake up at four to some old-timey dubstep spewing from my pillows. The lights are flashing. My alarm clock is blasting Skrillex or Deadmau5 or something, I don’t know. I never listened to dubstep, and in fact the entire genre is on my banned list. You see, my house has a virus again. Technically […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List, Uncategorized
Kelly Link Is Beloved, But Still Underrated: A Primer on My Favorite Living Short Story Writer
There’s that urge in adolescence when you feel like you discovered something, maybe a song, a book, or a painting, that resonates so deeply within you, to protect it, and keep it secret and close, so that you feel like you have claim of something wondrous and all your own. And if you share the […]
Posted inFiction, Quotes
Beverly Cleary on Fatherhood, via 'Ramona and Her Father'
At Avidly, Stephanie Lucianovic rereads the ‘Ramona’ books from Beverly Cleary and gains a new appreciation for Cleary’s writing, as well as a new perspective on the theme of parenting found within the books. Here’s Lucianovic on Ramona’s father: Running throughout the entire Ramona and Beezus oeuvre, and illustrated by Mr. Quimby’s ill-fated career, is […]
