Eliza Doolittle in the White House
In her essay “Speaking in Tongues” in The New York Review of Books, February 26, 2009, Zadie Smith examines Barack Obama’s doubleness, not just his biracial genetic history but how…
Features & Reviews
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Poems for an Economic Collapse
Katy Lederer’s poems are both romantic and political in nature. With their attention to formal and lyrical concerns, these poems tackle the problems of desire when it coincides with money…
“Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a crowd of Carhartt flannels.”
Jeff Parker‘s narrator watches from a dryer as the woman he’s laid claim to slinks off (and into bed) with a stout beef named Brick. The narrator confronts his rival,…
The Rumpus Interview with Uwem Akpan
“After the phone call, I walked more than a mile to church to thank God. But on getting there, I couldn’t sit or kneel or pray, out of excitement.”
I Hate to Make My Bed
In A Jury of Her Peers, Elaine Showalter chronicles the history of female American writers, from captivity narratives to Annie Proulx. Salon calls her “the woman for the job” due…
The Shorty Q & A with Rodes Fishburne
The hero of Rodes Fishburne’s first novel, Going to See the Elephant, comes to San Francisco with only a trunk full of first-edition19th-century novels and an equally heavy load of…
Kerouac Joins Crew of Novelists
Publishers Marketplace reports that Harpers has agreed to publish “The Sea is My Brother,” a “lost” novel by Jack Kerouac, written in 1942 and based on his experiences in the…
Fifteen Thousand Pages in Three Minutes
Roberto Bolaño’s überbook inspires a speed-read through literary history.
Lost in Space
For Mary Miller’s characters, the world is anything but big. These are women trapped in little towns and little lives, but the emotional resonance is limitless.
Save the Words
Though once upon a time Noah Webster wrote a dictionary to reflect the ever growing and changing language of American English, the Oxford English Dictionary does regularly update their logs…
The Return of Sweetness
For Dante, Heaven sweetened souls; for Bidart, who does not believe in Heaven, sweetness comes haggard, if it comes at all.
Stona Fitch’s Publishing Idea
Is the fix for what ails the publishing industry a new model that “definitely guarantees” writers won’t get paid? Author and founder of the Concord Free Press Stona Fitch thinks…