Posts by author
Katie O’Brien
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We Wish You A Literary Christmas
From Dickens to Nabokov to Ali Smith, Kate Webb traces the history of authors pondering Christmas, and the 21st century revival of the Christmas story: Even in our prickly individualism, hemmed in by consumer goods, there are moments when we…
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The Shocking Power of Claude Cahun
Jessa Crispin discusses discovering the darkly fascinating self portraits of gender-bending surrealist photographer Claude Cahun and the mystery in her life, in an excerpt from The Dead Ladies Project: The Cahun version of Acker had the shaved head, but angled…
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The Residue of Memory
At Vela Magazine, Leslie Kendall Dye discusses living with her mother who has dementia, and the connection between her mother and her own daughter: After dinner, I watch my mother and child play in my daughter’s shoe-box room. My daughter is…
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Part Cat, Part Owl
Margaret Atwood will be writing a new comic series for Dark Horse Comics called Angel Catbird, a story about a hero who is part cat, part owl due to genetic splicing. She is publishing the comic in collaboration with Nature Canada’s…
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Why Some Voices Are “Stronger” than Others in YA Lit
At the School Library Journal, Kelly Jensen examines gender norms and double standards in YA fiction, questioning which female protagonists we refer to as “strong”—and why do not refer to male voices as such: When women take risks in their writing,…
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On Writing For Old White Men
At the LA Times, Claire Vaye Watkins recounts her realization that she has been writing to appeal to the white male literary establishment: I am trying to write something urgent, trying to be vulnerable and honest, trying to listen, trying…
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The Day Jobs That Influence Our Writing
At the New York Times, writers Francine Prose and Leslie Jamison explain how their past jobs—at a morgue and in kitchens—have taught them about writing: But it was another truth — the humility of that kitchen, confronting what I didn’t…
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Balancing Motherhood and ‘Writerhood’
Over at Lit Hub, Katy Simpson Smith discusses finding the time to write as a mother, and the difference between claiming the term “writer,” and claiming it as a job: Here on this Farm, this midwifery utopia, I am surrounded…
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Edith Wharton’s Lost Story
An unpublished Edith Wharton story was recently discovered at Yale University by Dr. Alice Kelly. It’s called “The Field of Honour” and is set during World War I: Wharton was very much engaged with the war, she worked for a…
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On Living with MS
Over at Electric Literature, Martha Stallman depicts her life with multiple sclerosis in a funny and frank essay: Scooting is much, much easier than walking, and faster. By pushing from behind with my left hand and pulling from the front…
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The Unromantic Realities of Book Publishing
Books make being an editorial assistant seem pretty glamorous. Meghan Daum discusses the unromantic realities of being an editorial assistant in book publishing, in an excerpt from the new reprint of her essay collection My Misspent Youth: To the dewy…
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Striving for Simplicity
Academics aren’t exactly known for their simple prose. At the Atlantic, Victoria Clayton details the movement to make scholarly writing more clear and accessible: Bosley, who has a doctorate in rhetoric and writing, says that academic prose is often so…