Posts by author
Liv Lansdale
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Robert Hass Wins the Wallace Stevens Award
Joining the ranks of John Ashbery, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Adrienne Rich, Field Guide author Robert Hass was honored with the highly lucrative Wallace Stevens Award by the Academy of American Poets last Tuesday. You can read one of his famous…
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Profile of “Pangaeic” Writer David Mitchell
Fans of Cloud Atlas, a sextet of sweeping stylistic range, know well that Granta-recognized author David Mitchell has a knack for mimesis. But they may not know that he is also “uncommonly good at imitating nonhuman noises.” In anticipation of…
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“Don’t Go Online” and Other Good Advice for Writers
Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Sisterland and guest judge of McSweeney’s first-ever student short story contest, told McSweeney’s in an interview that she is looking for fiction with a “pulse,” that engages “in a kind of conversation,” and that serves the…
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“Let America be America Again”
In an interview with The New Yorker, Graywolf poet Claudia Rankine discusses Ferguson, James Baldwin, and the experience of invisibility: “[T]he sort of execution-style shooting takes [Michael Brown’s shooting] to this whole other place that starts approaching the language of…
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Seeing is Reading
For those of us who haven’t glanced at e.e. cummings since high school, it’s easy to forget that literature is a visual medium. When we think about reading, our minds often go straight to content. But rockstar cover designer Peter…
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(Un)death in Venice
Do you know what year the word “zombie” first stalked the English lexicon? Do you think you can provide your kids with a “psychologically safe context for contemplating a collapsed world”? Did you read the CDC’s memo on zombie preparedness…
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The Little [Terrifying] Prince
The latest installment of The Toast’s delicious “Children’s Stories Made Horrific” series, we are gleeful to report, takes on Le Petit Prince. Featuring quotes like “I drew him my hunger and my thirst. It had long teeth, and a long…
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In Cahoots
Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison. Sherwood Anderson and William and Faulkner. Henry James and Edith Warton. And now, X… and you! The Association of Writers & Writing Programs just announced the establishment of a mentorship program starting in September. As…
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Complementary Coverage
If asked who reviewed Haruki Murakami’s new novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, Patti Smith might not be your first guess. But review it she did—skillfully, favorably, and, to…
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Happy Birthday, Mr. Maupassant
In celebration of Guy de Maupassant’s 164th birthday, Paris Review blogger Dan Piepenbring revisits his, ahem, seminal story, “Boule de Suif,” about a French prostitute who, like Melville’s Bartleby, would “prefer not to.” Read his coverage here, and the original…
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Spellbound
Unaccustomed, vicious, onomatopoeia… We all have that one word we can never spell correctly. Paris Review blogger Sadie Stein’s was “Wednesday.” “It’s like a mental block,” she writes, “or maybe, an increased reliance on technology.” Read the rest of the…
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When in Rome
Dig historical fiction? In the forthcoming issue of The New York Review of Books, Daniel Mendelsohn revisits Augustus, the last novel written by John Williams, author of the literary cult favorite, Stoner. “Like the best works of historical fiction about the…