humor Archive
Obsessive Tactics in Patty Yumi Cottrell’s Sorry to Disrupt the Peace
In Patty Yumi Cottrell's novel Sorry to Disrupt the Peace, the narrator Helen Moran investigates her adopted brother's suicide, an effort complicated by Helen's own profound alienation. Relentlessly interior, discursive and associative, the novel reads as the direct outcome of Helen's grief, an inner crisis she attempts to control
The Readers: Katy Waldman and the Uses of Wit
For the young, left-leaning reader, there are plenty of smart literary voices online to choose from, but I often find myself gravitating toward Katy Waldman, a staff writer at Slate whose literary criticism offers some of the freshest takes on books that you are likely to find anywhere.
STUDENT RESPONSE LETTER #7,352
Dear Nikki: Thank you for sharing your new short story, “Oops I don’t have a title haha,” with the class. I look forward to discussing it in workshop. I read this story as an exploration of the narrator’s excitement and disappointments during a rock-climbing trip with a group of
Satire as Survival: The Necessity of Humor in Turkey Today
We’ve been told not to use the metro. We’ve lived through warnings during Nevruz, the Kurdish New Year, to not go out due to potential clashes on the streets. The German Consulate and German schools in Istanbul shut down for two days ahead of the weekend due to a
What is Your Writing Routine?
What is your writing routine? What does it look like when you sit to write? Any special rituals? I am so glad you asked. It’s really pretty great. I sit at my computer, and I check Facebook for, like, ten minutes. Okay, haha, twenty minutes. And then I write.
An Interview with Jennine Capo Crucet
I first met Jennine on the dance floor in a barn on a summer night at Breadloaf. Or at least I like to remember it that way. She’s an electric person, both in the flesh and on the page. She says the unexpected, and also the uncomfortable and necessary. She’s
How to Win AWP
I’ve always felt that AWP* could be livened up by a conference-long game of Paintball Assassin. Until that happens, here’s some other stuff to try: The Book Fair Bartering Game: Start with free swag. Something cool, like a box of matches with a chapbook cover on it. Find the
Calisthenics for Writers
Writer’s Butt is a real and tragic thing. You might be making great progress on that novel, but is your seat getting wider with every word count goal? Is your back so tight that when you stand up your arms are permanently locked in that T-Rex typing position? Time
Laughs in Translation
Recently, I was reading The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov’s antic retelling of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilot. The novel follows—in part—the devil and his deranged retinue, including a bipedal cat and a naked woman, as they wreak havoc on Moscow. The edition I own, translated by
Guest Editor Conversations: Percival Everett, Fall 2014
We’re happy to present the first of a new series–interviews with our guest editors, following the publication of their issues. Below is an introduction by Jessica Treadway, Emerson College professor and author of the forthcoming Lacy Eye (Grand Central, 2015), and a conversation between Editor-in-Chief Ladette Randolph and Percival Everett,