Posts by author
Roxie Pell
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Less Like a Communication
This poetry was a poetry meant to be read loudly, breathlessly, full-throttle, full of sonic energy and internal rhyme. It felt less like a communication from a speaker to a reader and more like sheet music for a reader to…
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Where We’ve Been
It’s hard to enjoy reading Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time when the stack of books on your bedside table keeps reminding you of all the cultural capital you have yet to consume. Flavorwire’s Sarah Seltzer wonders why we…
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Neither Seen Nor Heard
When it comes to the slush pile, nobody wins: writers lose money submitting into a void while editors lose time skimming work that barely resembles their publication’s criteria. Lincoln Michael offers a few suggestions for improving the system.
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Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through
How do we begin to describe the indescribable? In McSweeney’s newest book That Thing You Do With Your Mouth, actor Samantha Matthews and author David Shields challenge the way we think about trauma by changing the way we talk about…
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Bringing Up Baby
Shirley Jackson’s bone-chilling story “The Lottery” is probably the last thing anyone wants to associate with Mother’s Day, yet her lurking plot twists and sharp character insights are the perfect tools to write about parenting. In this month’s Slate Book…
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This Is The End, Beautiful Friend
The rapture may have been a bust, but our obsession with the apocalypse shows no signs of letting up. NPR’s Jason Heller explains why post-apocalyptic fiction will stand the test of time: The world feels more precariously perched on the…
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Kingdom of the Blind
So it goes. Kurt Vonnegut’s classic novel Cat’s Cradle has been optioned for television, setting the gears in motion for an adaptation of a book Vonnegut himself gave an A+ grade. With such great source material, hopefully the series won’t…
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When It Rains, It Pours
Whether you’re singing, dancing, or making out with Spiderman, there’s something different about doing things in the rain. In an excerpt from her book Rain: A Cultural and National History published at Salon, Cynthia Barnett analyzes rain as a narrative…
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Not So Literal
These days there are so many screens showing superheroes one can almost forget that they came from comics. Ta-Nehisi Coates talks to Vulture about storytelling, representation, and the places where movies fall short: We’re talking about something that’s so surreal…
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Independent Bookstore Day
What better way to spend a weekend than by supporting independent bookstores? This Saturday, stores all over the country will carry exclusive books and art pieces designed for the first annual Independent Bookstore Day, which celebrates the spaces that keep…
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New Audiences, New Allies
Can mansplaining ever be productive? Flavorwire’s Sarah Seltzer suggests that while Jon Krakauer’s ignorance may be infuriating, his “show don’t tell” approach to writing about rape in Missoula might help readers see firsthand how structures of oppression operate: Krakauer isn’t…
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The Thing Itself
You can’t put everything in the cloud. Over at The New Republic, William Giraldi makes the case for holding onto books in their physical form: We might be reading them—although I find that an e-reader’s scrolling and swiping are invitations to…