Posts by author
Guia Cortassa
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Talking Philosophy With Philip K. Dick
Melville House has just published a collection of interviews of the late Philip K. Dick. Head over to their website to read an excerpt from the last interview the author ever gave, to Gregg Rickman, shortly before his death.
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The New Teeth of Mexican Literature
While reviewing Valeria Luiselli’s The Story of My Teeth over at the Los Angeles Review of Books, Aaron Bady considers the rise of Mexican literature post-Roberto Bolaño: Roberto Bolaño’s popularity in English over the last decade or so has had a…
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Learning the Hard, Creative Way
In my father’s world, which still bore the markings of the class system he had fled seventeen years before, thinking that you were better than the life you had, which had actually allowed him to escape, was also a betrayal…
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To the West and Back
Riding my bicycle over the Manhattan Bridge, I see the city, instead of scuttling beneath it. And it is beautiful. Parks. Markets. Blossoms. People. Dresses. Pavement. This city is alive and full of wonder and I am just one lost…
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The Gift of Gratefulness
The worst insult people hurl at adoptees is that they are “ungrateful” and should “go back” (to their “own” countries, to their old families). That is the moment when adoption becomes a gift—because that is the moment when it becomes…
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Growing Up with Books
Over at The Millions, Nick Ripatrazone asked some authors, including William Giraldi and Christa Parravani, which were the books that defined their childhoods and, subsequently, their writing imaginations.
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The Sound of Different Voices
If we are to truly speak to, from, and about the margins, to which voices are we to tune our ears? The Offing has a new special issue devoted to trans and non-binary artists. Editor Jayy Dodd introduces this project and…
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An End Has a Start
At the Ploughshares blog, E. V. De Cleyre considers the many ways to find the right moment to end a nonfiction story: The aftermath, Cusk writes, is “life with knowledge of what has gone before.” Writers are not seers. Armed with…
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Paris Forever
That’s not to say being informed isn’t important—of course it is—but I suddenly felt a more important calling. I remembered the words of Marlon Brando in the wake of 9/11: “This is exactly the time for poetry!” Over at Lit…
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Diana Athill, the Other Woman
The role that seems to me most comfortable is not that of Wife, but that of the Other Woman. And in that role I am good, because I have never for a moment expected or wanted to wreck anyone’s marriage.…
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Submitting, from A to Z
I am not trying to brag, humble or otherwise, but merely establishing that perhaps the only thing I’m actually qualified to talk about in this world is literary magazine publication. Does the world need another submitting guide? Personally, I’ve found…
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Cutting a Long Story Short
November is here, and with it #NaNoWriMo returns! But if you don’t feel like writing 50,000 words in thirty days, over at The Millions Michael Bourne has another option for you, #NaGrafWriMo: …we would like to propose a kinder, gentler alternative to NaNoWriMo,…