December 2014
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Practicing Yoga with Sylvia Plath
This is the Plath poem I relate the most to shavasana. You sink down, you bubble back up. The Duchess of Nothing in yoga pants. For Carrie Frye, yoga practice and Sylvia Plath are inherently tied. She explains why in…
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The Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson
Matthew Tanner reviews The Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson today in Rumpus Books.
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Unpacking Patrick Modiano
Any author writing about contemporary experience in their own country can be seen as providing some kind of historical record. Modiano, however, goes further. His oeuvre – upward of twenty novels, plus poetry, plays and children’s fiction – acts as…
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
One last post for 2014. Thanks for reading, you are all the best. The year in terrifying science and great cinematography (check this link back later today for part two). Hey, so what’s the deal with garlic smell huh? Long…
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Wild Are the Winds to Meet You
On September 18th, the night Scotland voted on its independence from the UK, I was standing on the porch of a Civil War-era mansion after a reading. It was storming.
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The Second Time Around
2014 wasn’t just the year of the debut—plenty of authors released their second novel, often considered the most challenging for writers to write. Slate sat down with some second-time novelists to discuss their sophomore efforts, like Family Life author Akhil…
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Don’t Read That Book
The history of banning books is almost as old as book themselves. Now Electric Literature has featured an infographic from Printerinks.com exploring that history, beginning with the Bible in 1440 and leading up to The Da Vinci Code in 2003.
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TED WILSON REVIEWS THE WORLD #265
MY CHRISTMAS PUPPY ★★★★★ Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing my Christmas puppy.
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How to Read and Write Indian Literature
Anyone who simplifies a nation’s discourse misreads that nation. When you’re reading the texts of a recently created nation like India, which was only founded in 1947, you must know the political, historical, and linguistic backdrop, or you will miswrite…
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The Scorpion Always Bites the Turtle
During Amazon’s skirmish with Hachette, one group that rallied to Amazon’s defense were the self-published authors who claimed that the Kindle allowed their overlooked voices a platform. Now, those authors find themselves sinking as the online retailer has turned on…
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Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, what if your Christmas tree ornaments could tweet. Then, in the Saturday film review of Wild—the film adaptation of Dear Sugar columnist Cheryl Strayed’s eponymous novel—Kenny Ng praises Strayed’s “realness” and “punk aesthetic” while tempering expectations for the film.…
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The Future of Old Art
The Public Domain Review previews literature and art that will be entering the public domain in 2015, including work from Flannery O’Connor and Ian Fleming.