Posts by author
Victor Luo
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Looking for Trump in Classic Literature
With the election putting us all on edge, and the news cycles on both political ends spouting the rhetoric of potentially unprecedented catastrophe depending on the results, let’s step back and look to literature for an answer. For example: the many…
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Feminism and Silence’s Uneasy Relationship
Silence sometimes can protect you. It’s easy to think of the one who “saves herself,” who hides in the closet while the rest of the family is raped and killed by men in uniform. But silence can also protect others:…
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The Working Titles of Classic Lit
While the great classics studied in classrooms everywhere tend to have very memorable titles, those classics could have received slightly different treatment had their working titles been used instead. Over at Electric Literature, Carrie Mullins looks at several classics whose titles changed before publication.
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Flipping the Gender Script
Tired of the incessant number of novels describing women in terms of their slender bodies, simple minds, or sexual status? Over at McSweeney’s, read this hilarious satire from Meg Ellison where the gender script is flipped, and men are written…
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How Will Our Current-Day Literature Be Studied in the Future?
With so many books winning so many prizes over the years (Nobel this, Pulitzer that), one can’t help but wonder how our generation’s sense of literature might be described in the future. What patterns and obsessions and current trends might be considered…
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Keeping Family and Writing Separate
Here’s a question many writers loathe: what does your family think about your writing? Nosy readers gobble up the chance to connect a story’s characters and their real-life counterparts, and writers are generally sick of having their artistic lives colliding…
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How One Man Pioneered the Bookstore Business
You might know about the invention of the printing press revolutionizing the business of publishing, but what about the revolution in actually selling those published books? At Lit Hub, John Pipkin shares innovating bookseller James Lackington’s story of creating a book-selling boon…
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Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is Painfully Relevant Today
With so many Americans tuning in and cringing at the deluge of election controversies, we can take a little comfort that there are incredibly apt pieces of fiction to turn to for some perspective. At the Huffington Post, Claire Fallon looks at the…
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John Cheever Could Never Be a Single Mother
John Cheever, known as the “Chekov of the suburbs” for his fiction’s signature focus on the domestic, suburban family life in the 40s and 50s, probably couldn’t hack being a single mom today. At McSweeney’s, Jeanne Darst shares the excerpts from Cheever’s fiction…
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The Up and Downs of Literary Fame
While we may envy writers with books that have just reached critical acclaim or won a prestigious prize, a writer’s fame often doesn’t last for very long. What happens when a writer finds that his fame and influence have waned? Over at Lit…
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Even Famous Novels Weren’t Written in a Day
Feeling like the progress on your novel has stalled? That draft feel like it’s collecting dust as it sits on your hard drive, unopened for months? Worry not! Many novels that have been immortalized in literary history took quite some time to write…
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Describing Characters Better
Having trouble getting your character just right? Not sure how to illustrate their inner lives, their conflicted feelings, and complicated psychologies? Read John Thornton Williams’s extremely helpful essay on writing a character’s interior life over at Electric Literature.