Posts by author
Katie O’Brien
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Different Voices
In the hilariously titled “The Fragile Ears of Men,” Leah Finnegan analyzes the gender politics of female singers’ voices, and why male music critics are so irked by Joanna Newsom: But really, what is a musician’s voice if not distinctive?…
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Patti Smith’s “Obsessively Literary” New Memoir
Over at the New York Review of Books, Geoffrey O’Brien discusses iconic poet and punk-rocker Patti Smith’s new memoir, M Train: What the book expresses supremely well is the tentativeness of every movement forward, the sense of following a path so risky,…
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Love and Loss at the Unclaimed Baggage Center
At Racked, Stephie Grob Plante muses on the melancholy-yet-hopeful experience of shopping at the Unclaimed Baggage Center, a family-run business that sells items from lost luggage that was never reunited with its owner: So here I am, in Alabama, at the Unclaimed…
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Printed Books Are Here to Stay
A recent New York Times report showed that e-book sales are declining while printed book sales are doing well. Over at Lit Hub, Adam Sternbergh argues that the printed book is going nowhere, for at least another 500 years: Whatever…
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Music Magazines Are For Men Only?
At the Atlantic, Spencer Kornhaber responds to the recent controversial quote by Condé Nast Chief Digital Editor that acquiring Pitchfork brings “a very passionate audience of Millennial males into our roster.” He discusses Ann Power’s argument that the notion that…
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The Power of Pen Names
At Lit Hub, Tobias Carroll explores the history of authors using pen names, and what happens when these pseudonyms take on their own persona: Under the best conditions, they can add another wrinkle to certain literary works; under the worst,…
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A Writer’s Love-Hate Relationship with the Internet
Over at Vela Magazine, Sarah Menkedick discusses her complicated relationship with the endless distraction and instant gratification of the Internet as a writer: My default instinct is to skew towards the more challenging option, which demands greater discipline and less…
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No Narrator like a Gatsby Narrator
Over at Lit Hub, Robert Hahn finds homage to the voice of Nick Carraway in the fiction of Donna Tartt, Lorrie Moore, and Richard Ford, and discusses the lasting allure and the divisiveness of The Great Gatsby: There is a…
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Censorship in College Newspapers
At the Atlantic, David R. Wheeler examines recent attempts to limit freedom of the press on college campuses, tracking conflicts between university officials and college newspapers and court cases: In 2005, students at Governors State University in Illinois lost a…
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The “Unfathomable Uniqueness” of Lucia Berlin
At Electric Literature, Kelly Luce discusses the new collection of Lucia Berlin’s stories, A Manual for Cleaning Women, why she loves her fiction, and how the author’s work has often been overlooked until now: Maybe it’s because she was a…
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Rock Meets Paper
Musicians have always drawn inspiration from literary artists, and vice versa. Over at Lit Hub, Tobias Carroll explores the increasingly literary side of contemporary rock festivals: Perhaps the rise of literary events at music festivals is part of a broader…
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Getting Personal
In response to Slate’s viral article about the rise of the “harrowing personal essay,” prominent editors from different publications weigh in on the importance of confessional writing, reasons for its gender divide, and the publishing process behind it.