“The novel loves things. It loves money. It loves disappointment.”
Tag: Writing
“Cheerfully Monstrous”: Dodie Bellamy on Writing and Grieving
“I didn’t pay much attention to what was being put in the archives… there are letters that, if I had been paying attention, wouldn’t be there.”
Habits of Mind: John Warner on Teaching Writing
“You fall short and then you wonder, 'what could I do differently next time that gets us a little bit closer?' I love that process.”
“Having to Explain Who You Are”: Caryl Phillips on Baldwin, Fiction, & Sports
“The first thing he said is, ‘Don't call me Mr. Baldwin. My name is Jimmy.’ I thought, this is ridiculous, at the very least he's James.”
Public Thinker: Merve Emre Throws a Party for Different Readers
“One way to think about the act of annotating is that you are that meddlesome party gossip, telling the reader how to draw connections between the different parts of the text.”
Rereading the Revolt
In May 1381, rebels burned documents at Cambridge, then scattered the ashes to the wind. But why were universities targeted by the rebels?
“There’s No There There”: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on the Future of the Left
“We don't have a party. That doesn't mean we need one big organization. We may need a few big organizations. But we need organizations!”
Nikki Giovanni on Rest, Love, and Care
“There is nothing supreme about being white.”
The Ten Thousand Things
“I am supposed to be writing this essay, ostensibly on technology, but not for the first time, I believe I am unable to write; and not writing, doubt that I will I ever write again.”
Literary and Manual Labors: Pittsfield, Massachusetts
“I have been building some shanties of houses …,” wrote Melville to Hawthorne, “and likewise some shanties of chapters and essays.”
When the Writing Takes Over the Writer
Louise Fitzhugh, author of Harriet the Spy, and the poet James Merrill were joined by friendship, craft, and graphomania: the compulsion to write.
Who Gets to Be a Writer?
Despite welcome diversification, literary culture is also becoming more tied to elite educational institutions, and more difficult to enter.
Writers: Know Thyself in Excess
Why read MFA-trained writers writing about writers training in MFA programs?
Good Teachers Know That Bodies Matter
Students must choose to do the work that will facilitate learning, so teachers must give them reasons to make that choice, again and again.
Public Thinker: Chanda Prescod-Weinstein Looks to the Night Sky
“There are two ways of reading Black invisibility and one of them is futuristic.”
Quizzical: Which Academic Press Are You?
We don’t judge books by their covers, but we do sort people based on which academic presses match their personality types.
Why Write? Toward a Style for Climate Change
What should climate-change writing be? What is its ambition as it moves forward?
Public Thinker: Hua Hsu on Reading until You See Double
“When I write, I try to begin from a place of authority and then I try to lose it over time. I want to transfer it to the reader.”
Igiaba Scego on Writing between History and Literature
“I strongly lay claim to imagination, because to us Black women for a long time the possibility of imagination had been negated.”
Longing for the Writer’s Space
How should readers and scholars look on the tangible traces writers leave behind?