Posts by author
Lisa Dusenbery
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O’Connor’s Cartoons
In light of a forthcoming publication of Flannery O’Connor’s early drawings, this Guardian article takes a look at her cartoons. The drawings—taken from the author’s high school and undergraduate years—are characterized as “O’Connor’s entry point to creativity” and reveal the…
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The Thirty-Second Story
Inspired by “Jeopardy!,” this Book Bench article explores “the thirty-second story.” The anxiety-inducing nature of composing a memoir in thirty seconds is explored through discussion with former contestants of the show and by imploring other Book Benchers to compose their…
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Cliché Shaming
At The Guardian poets reveal “the expressions that have become such cliches that they have lost all meaning.” Explanations included. “Devastated” (and its variations) is a repeat winner. Is that more of a British thing? Also: “Britain is leading the…
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Nostalgia: What Would Calvin Say?
An encounter with childhood Calvin and Hobbes anthologies inspires a rumination on the comic and nostalgia itself in this essay at the Awl. Tackling aspects of nostalgia that we often forget, as well as the drawbacks of overdosing, the essay…
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Experimental Literature
Dennis Cooper answers five questions on experimental literature yesterday at HTML giant. The author is asked about the body, politics, economics and race. He also suggests a hefty dose of works to check out. On the unique “use value” of…
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First Muses
Remember your first muse? “My first muse was a chubby, bespectacled, brown-eyed, sharply intelligent 13-year-old boy in Phoenix, Arizona in 1975. When he laughed at and loved my writing, I felt the erotic surge of my own power. Since then,…
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Site for Cities
A new destination awaits the city dwellers, lovers, and planners among us. Yesterday The Atlantic announced its plans to launch The Atlantic Cities in September. The imminent site will be “dedicated to the global cities and neighborhoods where we live,…
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Why Fiction?
Why do people (with some notable exceptions) continue to read literary fiction in our rather tenuous literary culture? The Millions’ Jon Baskin reviews Timothy Aubry’s Reading as Therapy, which tackles this question. Examining American reading habits, Aubry teases out the…
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Stock Poetics
Those of us who can only stomach the stock market when paired with poetry (or vice versa?) may be in need of a mash-up. We are in luck. This week BOMBlog juxtaposes a video on the stock market with poetry…
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Language Therapy
Should doctors be prescribing languages instead of pharmaceuticals? The Nation‘s Ange Mlinko ponders the potentially transformative relationship between a second language and the self.
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Hysteria Dissected
Asti Hustvedt’s Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth Century Paris explores 19th century French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot’s use of hypnosis to induce hysteria in his patients. Kathryn Harrison’s review of the book outlines how the ever-elusive idea of hysteria resisted not…