Interview with Kristin Dombek

Author: | Categories: Interviews No comments
Last month at the Franklin Electric Reading Series in Crown Heights, Kristin Dombek read a collaborative “choose your own adventure” piece with her friend Stephanie K. Hopkins, pausing after every scene to ask the audience where the story should travel next.

Art House America

Author: | Categories: Interviews No comments
For 25 years people have been galvanized to go to the Art House in Nashville because it’s a beautiful, storied, iconic place with a history of good things happening on the property. As Art House has spread to other locations, the enthusiasm for gathering around common loves and concerns

Round-Up: London’s Young People Laureate, The National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35, and the Identity of Elena Ferrante

Author: | Categories: Round-Up No comments
From London’s first Young People’s Laureate to the author Elena Ferrante’s alleged true identity, here are last week’s biggest literary headlines: London’s first “Young People’s Laureate” is Caleb Femi, who is a 26-year-old teacher and poet. He will work with Spread the Word to engage young people with poetry and the

The Most Necessary Books for the End of 2016

Author: | Categories: Book Reviews No comments
This election season is no joke. At times, this world can feel grim as the weather grows cold and the nights grow long. Pick up one of these necessary books to guide you through the end of 2016 with heart, honesty, and compassion.

Disappearing Acts: On Wilderness and Writing

Author: | Categories: Reading No comments
Most people get lost accidentally, a few get lost by necessity. There is hardly a story more compelling to me than the latter—that of the individual so primordially unsatisfied with civilization that wilderness is their only consolation.

“A Big Book for People to Wander Inside”: the Appeal of Writers’ Houses

Author: | Categories: Reading No comments
I’m fascinated by writers’ homes and museums, regularly drawn to them, though visiting them I often feel restless, as if something is missing. After all, what do buildings full of photos and objects, dioramas and paintings and film clips and clothing, have to do with great writers or favorite

The Audacity of Canon Building

Author: | Categories: Reading No comments
Two scholar friends of mine who work in the very broad and sometimes amorphous field of the digital humanities curated a show last year at UC Berkeley called “No Legacy.” Among the goals of the curators Élika Ortega & Alex Saum-Pascual was the disruption of the notion ingrained in many

One Thousand and One Nights: an interview with poet Gwee Li Sui

Author: | Categories: Interviews No comments
Gwee Li Sui is the author of the graphic novel Myth Of The Stone, the book Fear No Poetry!, and poetry collections The Other Merlion and Friends, Who Wants To Buy A Book Of Poems?, and Who Wants To Buy An Expanded Edition Of A Book Of Poems?. I

How a Polar Bear with an Axe in its Head Might Save You: Two Stories by George Saunders

Author: | Categories: Reading No comments
The Inner Hornerites finally have chance to strike back. They've been taxed and belittled, imprisoned in a Short-Term Residency Zone, their friend Cal disassembled by Phil's Special Friends before their eyes.

Notes on the State of Virginia: Journey to the Center of an American Document, Queries XV-XVI

Author: | Categories: Series No comments
This is the eighth installment of a year-long journey through Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. ** Query XV: The colleges and public establishments, the roads, buildings, &c. Query XVI: The measures taken with regard to the estates and possessions of the rebels, commonly called Tories