Reading Archive
The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Fatherhood” by David Rutschman
How many words does it take to encapsulate a feeling? An experience? A story we looked at two weeks ago, “Love” by Clarice Lispector, spends just under 3,500 words exploring its title, where Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom takes well over 500 pages plumbing its own. While “Fatherhood” by David Rutschman
Do-Overs: 5 Books that Tell The Untold Story
Some of the best rewrites of classic stories come to us through the author’s imaginings of what the original doesn’t say. Through original work that transcends “fan fiction,” these stand-alone novels and plays work best when they have their own story to tell. Whether this is done through expanding narrative
Poetry as Design
A car that can’t get you from point A to point B is a bad car. A pitcher that can’t hold liquid is a bad pitcher. A garment that doesn’t fit the human form is a bad garment. (Make it work, designers!) A poem that doesn’t make you feel something
“The dead do not cease in the grave” : Srikanth Reddy’s The Voyager
Why do we erase? We make mistakes. Or, different words demand emphasis. Or, we want to return to the beginning. In creating a poem out of erasing another text, we ask questions of the text itself, but we also open up an analysis of silence. The Voyager is an
The Poem and the Hotel
Dear Loews Luxury Hotels & Resorts, When you decided to move in, we were nervous. This is Chicago, an unsophisticated Midwestern city, and you’ve built your leisure palaces for the super-rich all over North America. We’ve been hurt by people like that before. (Don’t get us started about that
The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Volcano Climber” by Courtney Craggett
Augustine of Hippo wrote “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.” In her short story “Volcano Climber” (Juked), Courtney Craggett explores the nature of the first of
Review: MAYHEM: THREE LIVES OF A WOMAN by Elizabeth Harris
Mayhem: Three Lives of a Woman Elizabeth Harris Gival Press, October 2015 140 pp, $20 Pre-order here In the opening scene of this exquisite first novel by prizewinning short fiction writer Elizabeth Harris, a young farm wife in a black cloche hat and rummage sale dress climbs out of
When We Were Little Women
Like all the books I loved as a kid, Little Women took over my imagination and play and conversation—but in this case, more than any other, the takeover was communal. With my friends, I play-acted scenes from the book. Meg’s stay with the fashionable Moffats. The onset of Beth’s
10 Inspiring Books on Women’s Lives
I never tire of learning about other women’s lives and how they were forged. How does one construct a passionate life? Or articulate the way one survives the throes of it? What art can be made from mess? My first two books circled these questions in different ways, and
Literary Blueprints: The Monster
Despite the simple title, the Monster is perhaps one of the most complicated, shifting characters in literature, past and present. Much of defining the Monster means defining ourselves and our views of the world. No other character relies so much on perspective to explain who (or what) the evil