“Despite the headlines that came after the election calling this country ‘Trump’s America’—and there were many—I won’t call it that, or see it that way. And regardless of your politics I’ll ask you to join me. This is our America. It’s our America to write in, and our America to write.”
Marilynne Robinson
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction
Writing Our America
“Despite the headlines that came after the election calling this country ‘Trump’s America’—and there were many—I won’t call it that, or see it that way. And regardless of your politics I’ll ask you to join me. This is our America. It’s our America to write in, and our America to write.”
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Quotes
The Fears of Our Nation: President Obama Interviews Marilynne Robinson
The President: How do you reconcile the idea of faith being really important to you and you caring a lot about taking faith seriously with the fact that, at least in our democracy and our civic discourse, it seems as if folks who take religion the most seriously sometimes are also those who are suspicious […]
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 inFiction, Quotes
The Unanswered Question of Race in Edgar Allan Poe’s Writing
It is seldom mentioned that Poe came of age in a slave society, in a household where slaves were present. Poe does nothing to draw attention to the fact. An account of the business interests of Poe’s foster father, John Allan, quoted by the biographer Jeffrey Meyers, notes that he and his partner “as a […]