The Readers: Maureen Corrigan and the Fictions That Endure
If you listen to NPR, you might vaguely recognize Maureen Corrigan’s voice. Even and deliberate, it always has an elusive quality: Corrigan’s book review segments on Fresh Air, usually ranging from five to eight minutes, are self-contained things, and every word feels carefully chosen.
The Linked Stories and Linked Lives of Elizabeth Strout
Why are rural communities so often the target of linked story collections?
The Limits and Freedoms of Literary Regionalism: Truman Capote’s Shifting Proximity to New Orleans
Truman Capote often returned to New Orleans, his hometown. In his 1950 book of essays entitled Local Color, Capote writes detailed observations of the cities he visits, the first among them his Louisiana home.
Structure and Storytelling in the Space-Age Ballet
Last weekend, I attended The Washington Ballet’s final event of the season, “Tudor, Ashton, World Premiere” at the Kennedy Center. The World Premiere—Kent’s first commission for The Washington Ballet—was timed with the Kennedy Center’s celebration of John F. Kennedy’s centennial.
Imagining the Anthropocene: Evoking an Ecological Occult
Human society is built on superficial impositions of order: government, religion, science, and language attempt to enervate chaos. But for Jane Mead, a poet entrusted with her family’s California vineyard in the midst of a historic drought, there’s no hiding from earth’s mists and windstorms.
Review: THE VEGETARIAN’S GUIDE TO EATING MEAT: A YOUNG WOMAN’S SEARCH FOR ETHICAL FOOD by Marissa Landrigan
Food choices, she argues, are not just an animal rights question, but one embodying environmental, labor, and fair trade concerns.
Jean Genet’s Bodies & Borders
In 1941, in Paris’s Prison de la Santé, Jean Genet was given three days’ solitary confinement for writing. On sheets of paper he’d been given to make into bags, Genet had begun his first novel: Our Lady of the Flowers.
Don’t (Never) Change: On Holding On and Letting Go
Ever since I was a young girl, I’ve been aware of my inability to maintain a daily journal. Upon the birth of my child, when my life was instantly transformed and everyone around urged me to savor it, this shortcoming became ever more pernicious.
Don Draper Descends Through Dante’s Inferno
Mad Men was known for its liberal usage of literary allusions, most of which were exactly what you’d expect. But only one allusion lasted the entirety of a season: Dante’s Inferno.
“Living Imaginarily Under Truthful Circumstances”: An Interview With Elizabeth Powell
Elizabeth A. I. Powell’s poems are adventures in language; they travel freely across the borderlands of genre and bring the reader along for an inventive, unforgettable ride.