Days in the History of Silence
Days in the History of Silence Merethe Lindstrom Other Press, August 2013 240 pages $14.95 Buy: book | ebook I’m not very familiar with Norwegian literature, so I can’t comment on whether Merethe Lindstrom’s Days in the History of Silence follows the typical conventions of Norwegian novels. What I
Get Real! Or Maybe Don’t Get Real? A Conversation with Lincoln Michel (Part 1)
Recently, on social media, Gigantic magazine editor Lincoln Michel questioned the label of “realism.” I write “realism,” and I’m branching into other genres, so I introduced myself and asked a few more questions. Our conversation, conducted over e-mail, spanned several days, topics, and (starting today) will also span two blog entries
Writing Lessons: Sandy Pool
In our Writing Lessons series, writers and writing students will discuss lessons learned, epiphanies about craft, and the challenges of studying writing. This week, we hear from Sandy Pool, a student in the Ph.D. Creative Writing program at the University of Calgary. You can follow her on Twitter @sandypools. —Andrew Ladd,
The Ploughshares Round-Down: Ditch the Publishing Gods
In mid-March, Time published the first ever in-depth interview with Jonathan “Jony” Ive, the Senior Vice President of Design at Apple. In it, Ive described the experience of working toward an excellent—and aesthetically pleasing—product: Steve and I spent months and months working on a part of a product that, often, nobody
Writers You Want to Punch in the Face(book)
This is the story of Todd Manly-Krauss, the world’s most irritating writer. He’s a good enough guy in real life (holds his liquor, fun at parties, writes a hell of a short story)—but give the guy a social media account, and the most mild-mannered of his writer friends will
The Best Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Come to Bratislava!” by Benjamin Reed
I knew I was into Benjamin Reed’s story “Come to Bratislava!” in Big Fiction when the main character, a forty-three year old man named Edgar, makes an observation about the phrase “You are my rock.” I’ve never liked this way of articulating someone’s importance and essentiality—hearing it uttered usually
Competing With Your Muse: On Stephen Amidon’s Something Like the Gods
Under Review: Something Like the Gods: A Cultural History of the Athlete from Achilles to LeBron by Stephen Amidon (2012, Rodale, 240 pages) Sports, much like the arts, are only as vitally useful—or frivolously useless—as the beholder deems them. Neither game nor poem serves an essential function in helping
The Magic of Objects
“I would say that the moment an object appears in a narrative,” Italo Calvino writes, in Six Memos for the New Millennium, “it is charged with a special force and becomes like the pole of a magnetic field, a knot in the network of invisible relationships. The symbolism of
Writers Do It Best: Justin Brouckaert
In the ‘Writers Do It Best’ series, contributors reflect on how their education and experiences as writers have uniquely prepared them for their lives outside the writing world. Today, we hear from Justin Brouckaert, a James Dickey Fellow in Fiction at the University of South Carolina. You can follow
The Ploughshares Round-Down: Why Learning To Write Plot Matters
A few years ago, my cousin was just about to graduate from a small state school with an English degree. He told me he wanted to be a writer. I had never read any of his writing, so I was unbelievably discouraging. Try a job in the real world,