Posts by author
Stephanie Bento
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Creating Serendipity
I began to wonder whether we can train ourselves to become more serendipitous. How do we cultivate the art of finding what we’re not seeking? Over at the New York Times, Pagan Kennedy asks whether serendipity is a sheer accident…
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A Modern Take on the Serialized Novel
To marry the traditions of the Victorian novel to modern technology, allowing the reader, or listener, an involvement with the characters and the background of the story and the world in which it takes place, that would not have been…
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Books for the New Year
Always a work in progress. Always dancing. Looking for an inspiring read for the new year? The New York Times‘s Sunday Book Review offers a glowing critique of two of the year’s most popular self-help books: Amy Cuddy’s Presence and Shonda…
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Crazy Brave
Considering that most poetry isn’t read, “is it brave or crazy to devote oneself to poetry,” the New York Times asks. Citing poet Christopher Gilbert’s recently republished manuscript, the article says: Whether Christopher Gilbert’s poetry—or any poet’s poetry—will outlive the…
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Greatest Hits of the Heart
Patience. Curiosity. Repetition. Looking again and again. Not imposing a story line. Letting composition emerge through pattern, rhythm, shape, sound, movement. Occasionally … you hit upon a moment of grace. You can’t plan for it. You just have to practice…
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Saunders and Storytelling
Brevity’s nonfiction blog takes a look at a recent short film about writer George Saunders’s thoughts on storytelling, and applies his advice to essay and memoir: With nonfiction, looking underneath is often less interrogating our imagination and more out-there-with-a-recorder research.…
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The Science of Sentimentality
Based on the available evidence, if you want to write one of the fifty most important novels in the next half-century, then by all means avoid sentimental language. But if you want to get published, sell books, be reviewed, win…
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Celebrating Shakespeare
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have found a unique way of honoring the Bard on the upcoming 400th anniversary of his death: a digital re-creation of a popular British museum dedicated to Shakespeare. According to the New…
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Books May Be Getting Longer
Books are steadily increasing in size, according to a survey that has found the average number of pages has grown by 25% over the last 15 years. According to the Guardian, “the average length has increased from 320 pages in…
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In Her Own Words
Over at NPR, authors Claire Vaye Watkins and Marlon James talk about Watkins’s recent essay, “On Pandering,” which she describes as: …internalizing the sexism that I’d encountered in the writing world, and the world beyond, and adjusting what I wrote…
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Feminism for All
My own definition of a feminist is a man or a woman who says, ‘Yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better. All of us, women and men, must do better.…
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Subway Stories
The project brings physical books back into the public’s routine, and in some ways obviates the debate over the necessity or function of the print object. The Ploughshares blog recently featured an innovative project by a Brazilian publishing house to…