Posts by author
Guia Cortassa
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Introducing Introductions
“No matter whether it is called an introduction, foreword, or preface, the best front piece written by the book’s own author encourages a reader to turn the page and start, but respects her need to experience the work on her…
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Orson Welles’s Century
If we want to mistake success in Hollywood for a state of grace, then Welles is our Lucifer — the archangel closest to the Almighty whose beastly arrogance is to blame for whatever hell he woke up in. But what…
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Life, Death, and Jokes
When I drew my last breath, no one saw me. The car that hit me drove quickly away, and a driver stopped to carry me out of the center of the road. I was already dead when he carried me,…
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Powerful Couples
Over the past decade, the Colemans have published nearly 50 books, sometimes as solo writers, sometimes under pseudonyms, but usually as collaborators with a byline that has become a trusted brand: “Ashley & JaQuavis.” They are marquee stars of urban…
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Consider the Paragraph
Paragraphs just might be the most underrated writing tool. Over at Smart Set, Elisa Gabbert points out how the use of paragraphs makes a difference in writing literature.
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Demystifying Stereotypes
What exactly is a “stereotype”? Over at the Ploughshares blog, Brett Beasley explains what the word really means, and where it comes from, with a little help from Oscar Wilde.
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Book Shopping with the Author
Over at the Los Angeles Review of Books, Jonathan Lethem gives us a tour of the books he’s buying at Skylight Books in Los Feliz.
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Guns and Relatives
While we wait for his partner, George teaches us some U.S. history. How the “Indians weren’t doing much with their land anyway” and that today’s rednecks and hillbillies are the descendants of prisoners dumped here to be the newfound nation’s…
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Bones and Books
I didn’t tell him the deer bones were a substitute for human bones, or that I wanted to know if a man could be cooked in a smokeless, homemade oven in the backyard. Here, in certain circles, you don’t tell…
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Writing as an Animal
“Can fiction show us how animals think?” Ivan Kreilkamp doesn’t think so, and tells us why in an essay over at the New Yorker.
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God Help the Mother
Her name becomes shorthand for a republic of women and black artists with “no home in this place” to borrow a phrase from Morrison’s Nobel lecture, people who create, reclaim and celebrate art that is intent on offering something of…
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Black History Romance
Alyssa Cole invited Kianna Alexander, Piper Huguley, and Lena Hart to join her for a roundtable discussion of historical romance novels by black authors. They talk about inspiration, research, and character development over at the Toast.