Posts by author
Roxie Pell
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Bellow’s Back
Simultaneously divisive and overlooked, Saul Bellow’s work has produced both fervent supporters and detractors while alienating many younger readers. This spring, a new biography by Zachary Leader will bring the late author back into the conversation. Vulture‘s Lee Siegel reflects…
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Word Vomit
Jack-of-all-trades Nick Cave just pulled a J.K. Rowling, this time on barf bags rather than a cocktail napkin. During his 2014 tour with The Bad Seeds, the multimedia musician/writer/actor penned an entire book on the sides of airplane sick bags,…
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Factory Fiction
For all our worrying about essay-writing robots, it’s easy to overlook the Fordist production models already in place in the publishing industry. Over at Flavorwire, Jonathon Sturgeon considers the implications of literature that is ghostwritten and consumer-driven: Under automation, fiction…
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Reception in Red
Why spend another Friday night binge-watching Treehouse Masters when you could be meditating on the passage of time and the lifelong project of self-actualization we humans must all undertake? If you’re in San Francisco tonight, swing by Four Barrel Coffee…
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Girls Read Now
As if you weren’t already counting down the days until spring, here’s one more thing to look forward to. Girls Write Now, a program that helps underserved teenage girls in NYC develop their writing, has just announced its 2015 CHAPTERS…
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The Ides of March Madness
March Madness is well underway, prompting us to reflect on the joys of our most favorite pastime. Ah, sports. How we love them. Here are all the books we’re reading instead.
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Like Whatever
Art is problematic. Humans are problematic. Roxane Gay is a bad feminist. We know this, yet still we attack each other for liking Lil Wayne or Fifty Shades of Grey. Flavorwire‘s Sarah Seltzer wants us to stop telling women what they…
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Free Speech and Fearless
If the meaning of a piece of writing changes over time, can we alter the past from a contemporary perspective? Over at Newsweek, Preti Taneja considers whether we should censor Shakespeare, a writer whose 16th century work has powerful 21st…
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Leave Harper Alone
The mysterious buzz surrounding the upcoming release of Harper Lee’s second novel, Go Set a Watchman, has had readers and journalists speculating about the elderly author’s mental capabilities in a manner often invasive and disrespectful. Lee answered a particularly nosy…
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Here There (May or May Not) Be Dragons
Kazuo Ishiguro’s new novel The Buried Giant has reignited debates about genre fiction following Ishiguro’s implication that the work isn’t fantasy. The author has since clarified which side he’s really on. Meanwhile, Flavorwire‘s Jonathon Sturgeon defends Ishiguro’s right to call…
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Dynamic Duo
Moves are being made in the independent publishing world. In 2016, respected label Coffee House Press and book club/bookstore hybrid Emily Books will collaborate to release their first original title together, one of two per year: We are energized by…
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A Writer By Any Other Name
For all her artistic clout, critics continue to dismiss Miranda July as “cutesy” and “twee,” labels that reflect an inability to distinguish between her work and her persona. Over at Guernica, Tin House editor Rob Spillman argues in defense of…