Beyond Sympathy: Seeing Myself in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s THE SYMPATHIZER
Jacqueline Woodson, author of the National Book Award-winning Brown Girl Dreaming, said, "I think it’s so important for readers to see mirrors of themselves in books and to see that the people who wrote the books look like them, so that they can understand their own power and ability.”
The Next Generation: Children in Science Fiction Understand What Adults Can’t
Alice in Wonderland inspired Lewis Padgett’s sci-fi story “Mimsy Were the Borogoves,” in which an alien sends boxes of special toys to Earth. Scott Paradine finds one and intuits that the toys are special, as does his baby sister Emma.
Writing Trauma: Notes of Transcendence, #5—The Objective Correlative
Caldwell’s memoir is a deep exploration into how human and human-animal connections can heal us from traumatic experiences.
Alternatives to Blast Open the Forms of Nonfiction
Today’s nonfiction writers have at hand a number of forms other than the essay and the memoir. There’s the flash essay, of course, and literary journalism. Then there’s the catch-all form of nonfiction known as the lyric essay. So, what do they all mean?
Round-Up: The Shanghai Children’s Book Fair, Emma Watson, and the Bronx Barnes & Noble
From the Shanghai Children’s Book Fair to the closing of the Barnes & Noble in the Bronx, here are last week’s biggest literary headlines: The Shanghai Children’s Book Fair (CCBF) will take place November 18-20 at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition Center. The CCBF is expecting more than 10,000 trade visitors,
An Aquarium in Paris
Sinking down the basement steps of the Palais Porte Dorée in Paris is to find it much as it was in its inaugural year. The hulking Art Deco palace was a centerpiece of the 1931 Colonial Exposition—a World’s Fair-type undertaking meant to reinvest French citizens of the interwar period
Book vs. Movie: No Country for Old Men
If, while watching a movie with your spouse, you like to whisper “that didn’t happen in the book” (and who doesn’t?), then you’ll be sorely disappointed by a screening of No Country for Old Men. Virtually every scene and every line of dialogue in the Coen brothers’ Academy Award-winning
Just Mercy: Visiting a Local Prison with Former Death Row Inmate Anthony Ray Hinton
A year ago, I first read Bryan Stevenson's book Just Mercy, a compelling memoir about his work as an attorney and a convincing indictment of the injustices of our current legal system. Now, I have the opportunity to accompany death row exoneree Anthony Ray Hinton, who was defended
Prophecies, Odds, Fate, and…Your Vote
In the ruins of Moria, at a fork in the mountain tunnels, Gandalf explains to Frodo how the burden of carrying the ring to Mordor was passed to him. The word he uses? “Encouraging.” Tough to swallow, but Frodo learns if it weren’t for him, there would be no
FLOUNDERS: an interview with Shira Dentz
Shira Dentz is the author of three books, black seeds on a white dish, door of thin skins, and how do i net thee (forthcoming), and two chapbooks, Leaf Weather and FLOUNDERS, newly available from Essay Press. Dentz is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets’ Prize, the