Reading in a Brown Body
During my first week of college, at the University of Iowa, several of us students were playing cards in my dorm room, when, unrelated to the game or to the conversation, one of the other freshmen asked me, “What are you?”
Poet Activist Spotlight: Rachel McKibbens
Hire people who don’t look like you. Publish work that doesn’t sound like yours. Read work that doesn't sound like yours. Take a look at your board, your editors, at the people in charge of the literary festival. If they are predominantly white, start over.
Things That WIRED Magazine Doesn’t Talk About: In Conversation with francine j. harris and Devin Kenny
Poet francine j. harris and artist Devin Kenny explore how technology affects language, how they go about the processes of investigating their own work, and who their mentors are–as well as how they themselves have mentored others.
Beyond the Olympics: Reading Brazil
Beyond the leading sporting events and the idyllic beaches (and the political crisis), there is a Brazil of varied landscapes and experiences. These days I find myself returning over and over again to books that show another side of Brazil, books that are capable of challenging stereotypes.
Round-Up: Oprah’s Book Club, SYRIA SPEAKS, and Enhanced Ebooks
From Oprah Winfrey's Book Club to an interactive reading experience, here's last week's top literary headlines.
Waiting for Hopper
Woman in the Sun is located in the large hall next to the elevators on the sixth floor of the new Whitney Museum. The good thing is that most people go straight for the exhibition so that the space in front of the painting isn’t crowded.
Phonesthesia: Poetic Sound and Diegetic Noise
Can poetry, through its command of sound, represent physical spaces, objects, and movement? Can one describe something—a setting, a object, a person—and also synesthetically render it for the reader?
Why is THE LONG GOODBYE so Long?
Detective novels are meant to grab you, kick you in the gut, hoist you up by your cheap lapels, and carry you along riveted as you stagger through the L.A. streets. On your journey you’ll drink from flasks, resist femmes fatales (or not), and compromise your principles.
García Márquez: Your Community Matters Most Between Now and November 8th and Beyond
Perhaps we can see the election season as the town sees Esteban’s appearance. It approached from what seems like a distant place, somewhat mysterious and dark and wrapped in unusual things, and over time has become the center of many of our daily lives.
Big Picture, Small Picture: Context for Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Red-Headed League”
Summer, 1891. Mysteries abound in southern England. On the evening of August 8th, a “perfectly sober” woman is seen walking home on a stone road in Epsom. Early the next morning she is found dead in the street, her throat cut, sending out gruesome echoes of Jack the Ripper.