An Anti-anti-science Novel
“It is a comfort to know how swiftly and thoroughly a civilization can crumble when nobody wants it anymore,” Rowan says early in his story…that observation is more than just…
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P.E. Garcia
356 posts
P.E. Garcia is an Editor-at-Large for the Rumpus and a contributor to HTMLGiant. They currently live in Philadelphia, where they were recently accidentally elected to be Judge of Elections. Find them on Twitter: @AvantGarcia.
Teaching Pynchon
At its worst, Pynchon’s prose is a beautiful failure. At its best, Pynchon’s prose is revelatory. Nick Ripatrazone, writing for The Millions, talks about what makes it so hard to…
Yeats’s Easter Poem
The Ploughshares blog looks at William Butler Yeats’s “Easter 1916” and the violent uprising that inspired it.
The Savagery of T.C. Boyle
So while there might be those out there who really want to elevate (and pigeonhole) Boyle as an important writer dedicating his career and talents to considering these seminal concerns…
The Politics of Genre
The Guardian explores why crime fiction tends to lean left, while thrillers often are more conservative.
Beating Writer’s Block
For Intelligent Life, Tim de Lisle captured some of Philip Pullman’s wisdom from his most recent interview, including his advice on how to get over writer’s block: If you’re stuck,…
The Power of “We”
We amplifies. That’s part of why writers are drawn to the collective voice, I think: it’s louder. For the Ploughshares blog, Clare Beams examines the use of the collective voice…
Making Carrie Comfortable
Carrie is most definitely of the horror genre, and horror is never about being comfortable. Society has changed, but what’s at the core of King’s novel remains as raw and…
The Most Common Rhetorical Device You’ve Never Heard Of
Like its cousin apophasis, litotes is one of the stealth bombers of the rhetorical world – its anonymous ubiquity defies reason and gives it the power to strike at any…
Weird, Wonderful Mexican Pulp Cover Art
They featured characters having hallucinations and apparitions; super-strength robots throwing cars on a destructive rampage; jealous gorillas who are furious they didn’t end up with the girl; a thieving woman…
How to Move Your Arms While You Talk
Slate looks at the 1857 book Sanders’ School Speaker: A Comprehensive Course of Instruction in the Principles of Oratory and its illustrations of what you should do with your arms…
The Stories of a Story-Hater
“I hate literature,” wrote Varlam Shalamov in a 1965 letter. “I do not write memoirs; nor do I write short stories.” Despite his claim, Varlam Shalamov would become one of…