An essay by memoirist Melissa Febos in which she responds to her Sarah Lawrence students’ fears around writing about their traumas, and concerns about being accused of “navel gazing.” She rejects the notion that there are already too many stories about trauma and personal experiences out there–along with other notions about memoir as narcissistic, arguments […]
memoir
Posted inNonfiction, Story
The Mystery of Carl Miller
What if your last name is just the word that comes after your first name?
Posted inFirst Chapters, Nonfiction
One Man’s Quest For His Vinyl and His Past
Motivated by seller’s regret and nostalgia, a journalist goes in search of the vinyl of his youth. And not just copies of albums he loved—he wants the exact records he owned and sold.
Posted inFirst Chapters, Nonfiction, Story
One Man’s Quest For His Vinyl and His Past
Motivated by seller’s regret and nostalgia, a journalist goes in search of the vinyl of his youth. And not just copies of albums he loved—he wants the exact records he owned and sold.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Jia Tolentino Remembers the Books She Started and the Books She Shelved
“Editing is a fugue state; the time self-erases.”
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
‘The Corrosiveness of Wanting Someone to Stay Hidden’: Carrie Brownstein on Her Father’s Coming Out at 55
So here was my father, in this white apartment with textured walls and thick carpeting, and the scant amount of furniture and paintings he’d brought from Redmond, looking like interlopers, like imposters, neither here nor there. And we’re sitting in this living room and I have no idea who he is and he says, “So […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
Second Chances After Fifty: Jeanette Winterson, in ‘Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?’
Today (October 2, 2015) I turn fifty. This is officially the first age that has freaked me out. Fifty? How can I be fifty? Fifty is how old grandparents are, or how old my grandparents were when I was born, anyway. And I haven’t even been a parent. Fifty is how old Maggie Estep was […]
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction
My Unsentimental Education
“I wanted him to understand my life—that I’d been caught in the local pattern and found the safest way forward, but if I’d lived somewhere else I’d be someone else and still could.”
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction, Story
My Unsentimental Education
“I wanted him to understand my life—that I’d been caught in the local pattern and found the safest way forward, but if I’d lived somewhere else I’d be someone else and still could.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
A Murder in Hawaii: The Two Trials of Maryann Acker
After three decades, author Linda Spaldin tries to help exonerate a woman on whose trial she had been a juror.