On Sexism in Literary Prize Culture
Sometime in 2001, I decided to stop reading books by male authors. After a degree in English Literature and an Honors thesis on Samuel Beckett, I had grown weary of reading books by men about men. I...
View ArticleHow to End a Memoir Without Getting Married
I have never thought more seriously about getting married than I did last year, when I was finishing a memoir about the death of a man I once loved. The question was not so much do I want to get...
View ArticleWe’re All Peripheral: On the Uncertainty of Literary Community
The sun is rising over the Alps, and the swifts and turtledoves have begun twittering in the apple trees of our backyard. At around 8:30 am, I sit down at my desk and open my computer. First order of...
View ArticleEating Carrion at the Icelandic Writers Retreat
It is day one of the Iceland Writers Retreat, and Andrew Evans, a travel writer, wants to convey to our small workshop of 15 people, in a session called The Smell of Elephant Poo, ways to create a...
View ArticleReading Through the First Year of Motherhood
I spent the first two weeks of my son’s life half-naked and dripping milk in front of friends and family. My nipples were hoovered multiple times a day by either an aggressive pump that seemed to be...
View Article12 Writers on the Books They’re Giving as Gifts This Year
If, as Joan Didion wrote, “we tell each other stories in order to live,” why do we give each other stories? Is it to share the pleasure that a particular book brought to us? Or to bring the knowledge...
View Article20 Literary Voices On What to Do Now
In the week since the inauguration, anyone who had any doubts about how terrible Trump would be as a president has surely reconsidered. The slew of appointments, executive orders, “alternative facts”...
View ArticleThe Ordinary Made Vital and Vivid: On Richard Ford’s Between Them
“With a depth of perception that’s both affectionate and insightful, Ford tells the stories of his parents’ lives and deaths by turn … It’s through this innate desire to know, paired with Ford’s...
View ArticleCheryl Strayed is Fed Up with Memoir-Bashing
Cheryl Strayed is a feminist phenomenon, what with her dazzling, bestselling memoir Wild, and her wildly popular Dear Sugar advice column, which is now a bestselling book and a NY Times podcast. But...
View ArticleHow to End a Memoir Without Getting Married
I have never thought more seriously about getting married than I did last year, when I was finishing a memoir about the death of a man I once loved. The question was not so much do I want to get...
View ArticleWe’re All Peripheral: On the Uncertainty of Literary Community
The sun is rising over the Alps, and the swifts and turtledoves have begun twittering in the apple trees of our backyard. At around 8:30 am, I sit down at my desk and open my computer. First order of...
View ArticleEating Carrion at the Icelandic Writers Retreat
It is day one of the Iceland Writers Retreat, and Andrew Evans, a travel writer, wants to convey to our small workshop of 15 people, in a session called The Smell of Elephant Poo, ways to create a...
View ArticleReading Through the First Year of Motherhood
I spent the first two weeks of my son’s life half-naked and dripping milk in front of friends and family. My nipples were hoovered multiple times a day by either an aggressive pump that seemed to be...
View Article12 Writers on the Books They’re Giving as Gifts This Year
If, as Joan Didion wrote, “we tell each other stories in order to live,” why do we give each other stories? Is it to share the pleasure that a particular book brought to us? Or to bring the knowledge...
View Article20 Literary Voices On What to Do Now
In the week since the inauguration, anyone who had any doubts about how terrible Trump would be as a president has surely reconsidered. The slew of appointments, executive orders, “alternative facts”...
View ArticleThe Ordinary Made Vital and Vivid: On Richard Ford’s Between Them
“With a depth of perception that’s both affectionate and insightful, Ford tells the stories of his parents’ lives and deaths by turn … It’s through this innate desire to know, paired with Ford’s...
View Article
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