Over at Electric Literature, Kristopher Jansma wonders why we tell students to avoid writing about writing. Perhaps, he suggests, we tell students not to write about writing because we think they should be going out and getting new experiences to write about. But maybe, he thinks, that’s not such a worthwhile approach to take: You […]
...morePolitical fiction can come across as heavy-handed, but avoiding all politics in writing may overlook the fact that people lead political lives. Over at the Atlantic, author Molly Antopol talks about how reading the fiction of Grace Paley taught her to write about political characters without sounding preachy—as she puts it, political fiction without a […]
...moreThe inaugural BookCon event just took place in New York City in conjunction with the publishing industry’s annual trade convention. When the event’s entirely white lineup was first announced, the #WeNeedDiverseBooks Twitter campaign drew attention to the problem and led the event’s organizers to put together a panel discussion about the need for diversity in […]
...moreThe 50th anniversary edition of Lunch Poems, the collection written by Frank O’Hara in 1964, has caught attention recently over at The Atlantic. The book has always been important to New Yorkers, and evidently it still is—in 2012, it was voted into the top ten list of objects that best tell New York’s story (it […]
...moreThe odds that your first novel will ever be published may not be great, but some new writers do manage to get published. NPR Books asks Chad Harbach and Tara Conklin about the process of writing and selling their first novels. About The Art of Fielding, which took Harbach ten years to write, he says: […]
...moreLove libraries? So do we. Know someone who thinks physical libraries will eventually disappear? Have them watch this mini-documentary, Why Libraries Matter, over at the Atlantic. A look at a day in the life of New York City’s public libraries reveals the many reasons people use libraries and why we shouldn’t let them disappear.
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