April 2014
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National Poetry Month Day 15: “Exercises in Breathing” by Kimberly Southwick
exercises in breathing I. knowing the rules is not enough. when it snows, it doesn’t always mean it. when it snows, sometimes it snows for the museums and sometimes it snows for the papers and sometimes it snows for only…
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The Great G.A.N.
Does the “Great American Novel” actually exist—or is it just the name of a book by Philip Roth? Over at the New Yorker, you can read Adam Gopnik’s review of The Dream of the Great American Novel by Laurence Buell, and you can…
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Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala
Diksha Basu reviews WAVE by Sonali Deraniyagala today in The Rumpus Book Reviews.
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
I will never get tired of 50 Watt’s ongoing 70s and 80s cosmic Japanese art series. Let’s all go to the 1982 World’s Fair! Maybe Saturn is making a new moon right now? Cuttlefish are kinda the best dudes. Elsewhere:…
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The Rumpus Interview with Jennifer Vanderbes
Jennifer Vanderbes discusses her latest novel, The Secret of Raven Point, the role of women in military history, and focusing on figures not commonly foregrounded in war literature.
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Fiction is Fiction
What does “realism” mean, anyway? Over at Ploughshares, Rumpus contributor and Gigantic magazine editor Lincoln Michel discusses the problems of the term “realism” when it comes to literature: I tend to think it is an ill-defined term, not a useful…
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Biography and the Digital Self
After centuries of shuffling papers, biographers must now deal with the sudden digitization of the self, and the behavioral changes that have followed. Over at The Millions, Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin considers how email technology has affected biography—and what’s gotten lost in…
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Is There Too Much Translation?
Writing over at Brooklyn Quarterly, Will Evans discusses why he founded a publishing house dedicated to translation: In addition to being a philosophical problem, literary translation is also a contentious business matter. There are thousands of good to all-time-great books published in…
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Rotten Apples and Other Writerly Customs
Nearly any creative writing course, teacher, or mentor will give you the same advice—writing is a solitary act and is different for every writer. However, some of us writers are a bit more different than others. Brain Pickings shows us…
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Ted Wilson Reviews the World #229
ENVER GJOKAJ ★★★★★ (4 out of 5) Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing Enver Gjokaj.
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Jay Gatsby Invades Poland
Polish language speakers are getting a new translation of The Great Gatsby, but a modern translation raises all sorts of linguistic issues. The primary difference, of course, is that the original translator wrote under the iron curtain and without the aid…
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Notable Los Angeles: 4/14–4/20
Monday 4/14: Write Club Los Angeles celebrates its 2nd birthday with Chapter 24: Spring loaded! Featuring three rounds of competition with readings by Mike O’Connell, Jeremy Radin, Justin Welborn, Paula Killen, Rachel Kann, and Jefferey Dorchen. Hosted by Paula Killen,…