2009
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Willa A. Cmiel: The Last Short Story I Loved, “The Boy Who Had Never Seen the Sea”
I read J.M.G Le Clézio’s “The Boy Who Had Never Seen the Sea” over the course of an average day—during meals, on the subway, during slow periods at work—and was afraid to let it end. When it did, I read…
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Hear That? That’s the Sound of Someone Reading to You
I remember all the nights I spent tucked into bed with my other sisters and our mother perched on the end of the bed reading Goodnight Moon to us. Those were the days; now I just stay up late at…
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Morning Coffee
The number of universes out there may depend on the human brain! Sometimes trees fall into your house, and that is ok. I’m certainly not the biggest fan of car culture in any of its forms, but it’s hard to…
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Equinox Oral Histories: “I Can Do This On My Own”
As part of Daniel Nester’s English 251: Interviews and Oral History class, students took trips down to Equinox, a community services center in downtown Albany, New York, to interview some teenagers and young adults who take part in their Youth…
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Fighting the Thousand Year War
Praveen Mavdan and Christin Evans, owners for the past two years of the Booksmith in San Francisco, are writing a series of weekly articles on the Huffington Post about their experiences running the store and, most importantly, their efforts to…
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Reviewing The Reviewers
“Criticism and reviews are both meta-forms–if they don’t in some way amplify or complicate the subject of their focus, then they shouldn’t exist. So much of what passes for reviews or criticism that I read online seems not simply to…
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The Beauty Of Black Sparrow Books
The love of reading and the love of books, while almost always coinciding are still, in essence two different things. If I loved to read as much as I loved books, for instance, then I wouldn’t own at least a…
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Sleeper’s Wake
John Wraith’s penis is a neat literary device. It provides character depth and motivation, and is central to every plot twist in the book.
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On Being A Citizen Of Literature
“There’s a scene at the end of Ugrešić’s 1993 essay collection Have A Nice Day: From The Balkan War to the American Dream where the author describes an encounter that occurred while waiting in line for her I.D. card in…
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Are We Talking About Sex Differently?
My girlfriend is reading Henry Miller, we’re applying for food stamps and I’m having nightmares about children having died in my house. I spent the last weekend partying in Al Capone’s old hideout. And woke up to find myself waiting…
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The Big Book Club
There are books on the NEA’s list that I haven’t read and undoubtedly should read—but unless I’ve made a New Year’s resolution, I prefer to stumble upon my next book.