The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Appellations” by Faith Shearin
Juliet famously said of Romeo’s surname, “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” which may be true, but also—as the rest of the Bard’s play argued—problematic. So what is in a name? “Appellations” by Faith Shearin (FRiGG) explores what bearing names can
Notes on the State of Virginia: Journey to the Center of an American Document, Query VI
Author: Kiki Petrosino | Categories: Nonfiction, Poetry, Series, Writing, Writing Advice No comments
This is the fourth installment of a year-long journey through Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. You can read previous installments here, here and here. ** Query VI: “Productions mineral, vegetable and animal” A notice of the mines and other subterraneous riches; its trees, plants, fruits, &c.
Review: SAD GIRL POEMS by Christopher Soto
This collection’s jacked up heart beats in its final piece, “Hatred of Happiness.” “Hatred of Happiness” rejects and buries practically every trope proposed by the mainstream LGBTQ movement. Gone are the banners calling for marriage equality and positive representations of gay life. Gone is the assertion that “we are
Writ in Water: Interview with Chris McCormick and “Desert Boys”
Author: Joseph Horton | Categories: Authors, Interviews, Publishing, Reading, Series, Writing, Writing Advice No comments
This month, I chat with author Chris McCormick, whose terrific debut of linked stories, Desert Boys, follows main character Daley “Kush” Kushner and his friends Robert Karinger and Dan Watts. The book is largely set in the growing desert suburbia of the Antelope Valley, 70-odd miles north of Los
What Fiction Means
There isn’t much that will make you more aware of a book’s message, and leerier of it, than reading it aloud to a child. Maybe this explains why I seem to have discovered books with such inordinately terrible messages during the three-plus years I’ve been reading to my daughter.
Writer-In-Chief: As a Man of Letters, Obama Will Be Missed
In the era of the 24-hour news cycle and ubiquitous WiFi, being a good writer would not seem to be much of an asset to a politician. A commanding TV presence and social media savvy are at least as important. It wasn’t always this way, of course. Until the
The Collective Action of Swan Maidens
Last month I sat through five productions of Swan Lake, five days in a row. Despite a lifetime of ballet—and having danced the role of a swan in the ballet’s second act—I was hazy on the story’s ending. As perhaps I should be, as I’ve found evidence of nine
Round-Up: Roots, Jack Keruac, and the O. Henry Prize Winners
From the auctioning off of Jack Keruac’s famous letter to the next book in the Millennium series, here are the latest literary headlines: The letter that is largely credited as the inspiration for Jack Keruac’s On the Road is going to auction on June 16. Addressed to Keruac and written
Inferno: Reading Eileen Myles in Las Vegas
1 I have a few hours to kill in Las Vegas and I’m looking for a quiet place to finish Eileen Myles’s Inferno. Reading here feels like a radical act; it doesn’t make anybody any money or provide a sense of spectacle. The Vegas Strip seems to discourage it.
Han Kang’s THE VEGETARIAN Wins Man Booker International Prize
Last week, the winner of the newly refocused Man Booker International Prize was announced to be The Vegetarian, a novel by the Korean writer Han Kang, translated into English by Deborah Smith. Originally published as three novellas, the book is the surreal story of Yeong-hye, a young Korean woman