Posts by author
Alex Norcia
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A Colony Divided
In Koktebel, on the southern coast of Crimea, artists have gathered for almost a century, attracted to the “particular light and kinetic landscapes.” Now, with the annexation of Crimea, Neil Macfarquhar of the New York Times reports that the summer…
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Creative Writing’s Business
Rumpus contributor Nick Ripatrazone writes about teaching students the business side of creative writing at The Millions, addressing some crucial questions: Should a writer submit to a literary magazine that only “pays” in contributor copies? What does it mean that…
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The City of Diaries
Since founding Italy’s National Diary Archive Foundation in 1984, Saverio Tutino has amassed “thousands of diaries, letters, [and] autobiographies,” in an attempt at “remembering, and celebrating, the lives of ordinary people.” As reported by Elisabetta Poveledo in the New York…
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Literature at the Ritz-Carlton
At The Millions, Tracy O’Neill deconstructs the Ritz-Carlton’s new “Six Word Wows” ad campaign. The hotel chain calls for guests to describe their stay in six words or less, using the hashtag #RCMemories, and claims to be ““Paying Homage to a…
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My Life In Books Besides Middlemarch
Looking back on her reading life in her late teens, the New Yorker’s Rebecca Mead discusses the “flawed and pernicious division” between books read for pleasure and books read “because we have to,” because they’re part of the established literary…
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Letters From Ernest
For the New York Review of Books, Edward Mendelson writes about the second volume of Ernest Hemingway’s letters (1923-25), published by Cambridge University Press: What makes the book revelatory is not its biographical detail but the spacious view it gives…
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Ferguson: A Rumpus Roundup
On Saturday, August 9, an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, was shot and killed by a police officer. The boy was on his way home from a convenience store in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, where about two-thirds…
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Murakami’s Un-American Talents
Laura Miller, writing at Salon, argues that Haruki Murakami has a simple and often understated skill that American writers lack (or at least, aren’t willing to pursue): how he tramples “the coyness and elision that plagues so much…literary fiction on…
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Does Shakespeare Suck?
In a response to Ira Glass’s “Shakespeare sucks” tweet, John Pistelli, at The Millions, wonders if the radio host’s social media outrage—specifically, that the characters in King Lear aren’t relatable—is actually inaccurate.
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The Land of Suspect Compliments
With the release of his debut novel, The Land of Steady Habits, Ted Thompson considers why a compliment, in particular, increases the “residual shame” of publishing. At Salon, Thompson explores what it is he wants, especially when he is so…
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The Twin Peaks Project
As reported by Lincoln Michel at Electric Literature, Shya Scanlon has launched The Twin Peaks Project, which invites authors to write about the influence of David Lynch’s television show. The project’s first post, written by Scanlon, is live on The Believer Logger.
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Cover Paintings
Artist Mike Stilkey has abandoned the canvas and is painting on old book covers instead. Mashable has a selection of his work, which was recently on display at The Frostig Collection in Santa Monica.