Posts by author

Stephanie Bento

  • Reading in New York

    At the New Yorker, Alexandra Schwartz writes about the New York Public Library’s newly renovated Rose Main Reading Room, which was closed for two and half years for restorations. “The room is one of the city’s great public spaces, a shared…

  • Urban Poetry

    In a modern world where hyper-connectivity often results in disconnection from our immediate surroundings, creating the space to explore poetry can make us more reflective and engaged citizens. Over at the Guardian, Rosie Spinks writes about how poetry can both…

  • Words & Music

    If you were to hear a story with its own soundtrack, it’s going to affect how you feel and interact with that story, even if you’re not directly paying attention to the music, and vice versa. I also believe that…

  • Finding Your Voice

    Authenticity of voice can only come from authentic work. And authentic work doesn’t come from the head; it’s an outgrowth of authentic feeling. In a post for the Ploughshares blog, Annie Weatherwax considers how writing an artistic statement can help…

  • The Art of Twitter

    Over at the New Yorker, Jonathan Blitzer writes about novelist Rabih Alameddine’s artful Twitter feed and how posting paintings and photographs is part of the author’s writing process. “[W]hile the welter of distractions on the Internet is a liability to…

  • Experiencing FoST Fest

    “We are creating a unique story world,” said Charles Melcher, the festival’s founder. “Our tag line is ‘All the world’s a stage, come be a player,’ and this is the ultimate expression of that sentiment.” In an article for the…

  • Paris and All That Jazz

    While Fitzgerald’s haunts have certainly evolved over the years, and some have disappeared altogether, visitors to Paris can still relive the old-fashioned glamor of Fitzgerald’s Paris. It requires imagination, champagne, and a touch of despair.  In an article for Travel…

  • Love Thyself

    For NPR, Annalisa Quinn reviews Eimear McBride’s new novel, The Lesser Bohemians. “For McBride’s characters … love encroaches into and alters the inner self,” Quinn writes. “The Lesser Bohemians is a love story, yes, but it is really an electric and beautiful…

  • A Weird and Wonderful World

    In a New York Times book review of Alexandra Kleeman’s short story collection, Intimations, Hermione Hoby writes: Like an alien intent on some meticulous anthropological mission on Earth, Alexandra Kleeman seems always to be encountering the world for the first…

  • Navigating French

    Over at The Millions, Hannah Gersen interviews Lauren Collins about her memoir, When in French; learning a foreign language; and writing about herself. As Collins recalls: I wanted to describe the terrain of French, the kind of landscape and its…

  • Imagining Orsinia

    I begin to find my way about, to feel myself at home, here in Orsenya, matrya miya, my motherland. I can live here, and find out who else lives here and what they do, and tell stories about it. And so…

  • Writer, Storyteller, Pilot, Spy

    Though he fled the country as soon as possible, the writer would maintain an affection for Canada that lasted throughout his life. Over at The Walrus, Michael Hingston explores Roald Dahl’s time at Camp X—a World War II army base…