Posts by author
Stephanie Bento
-
Pondering Pond
At the New York Times, Meghan O’Rourke reviews Claire-Louise Bennett’s debut novel, Pond, calling it “one of those books so odd and vivid that they make your own life feel strangely remote.” (And check out Nina Schuyler’s review of Pond right…
-
Doors to Other Possibilities
I think what has brought imaginative fiction, imaginative literature, back into central centrality is that so much of it is very good, and so much of it is kind of needed because of the fact that it sort of opens…
-
Writing the Ukulele
Over at the Los Angeles Review of Books, Steph Cha talks to Sean Carswell about his new collection of short stories, The Metaphysical Ukulele, and his writing process. Carswell recalls: Every time I thought about consciously writing a collection, it…
-
In Conversation with Ramona Ausubel
Desire is the center of everything. We want because we are lonely, regretful, hopeful. We want because we don’t feel at home in our bodies or our lives. Want is this pivot point between whatever happened before that we’re trying…
-
This Year You Will Finally Read Ulysses
You don’t like to quit, but need a nudge to wade back into the novel’s overflowing streams of character consciousness, arcane references and shifting structure to follow those people going about life in Dublin on June 16, 1904. Yes, another…
-
A Library for Two Countries
Situated along the US-Canada border, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House “is the only library in the world that exists and operates in two countries at once,” Atlas Obscura reports.
-
Paper Memories
At Medium, Melissa Mesku, founding editor of New Worker Magazine, writes about what it was like to sort through thirty years’ worth of journals, diaries, notes, and scraps of paper: Those handwritten pages contained everything I was — everything I’d ever been, wanted,…
-
The Surprising Art of Dr. Seuss
In addition to being a world famous children’s writer, Theodor Seuss Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) was also a prolific artistic who produced dozens of illustrations, paintings, and sculptures. “Geisel dubbed his secret collection, containing about 200 works, the ‘Midnight Paintings,’” the…
-
Some Books Stay with You
If I can’t remember the words themselves, I can easily remember how I felt as I read them. And that’s always been my goal as a writer: to make readers feel as if they are in the world I’ve created,…
-
A Quiet Corner of the World
At the New York Times, Adelle Waldman, author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., writes about how a national park in Montana left an indelible mark on her and her marriage: We were both intoxicated by the place, not…
-
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Publishing
At Electric Literature, Lincoln Michel talks about the “taboo” topic of book sales, and offers some advice for writers: Writers should absolutely write with an eye toward art, not markets. Thinking about sales while creating art rarely produces anything good.…
-
A Tribute to Elie Wiesel
When I began to write, it was to tell other survivors to write. All we have is words. The Atlantic recounts the extraordinary life and legacy of Elie Wiesel—Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate—in a loving tribute.