Jane Austen: Teen Historian
Brain Pickings looks at Jane Austen’s “History of England,” a satirical pamphlet penned by the then 15-year-old Austen and illustrated by her sister Cassandra.
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Making Art and Being an Artist
When does an artist get to be called an artist? Anne Truitt explored the labels in her diary seven years in the making, Daybook: The Journal of an Artist. Maria…
Learning to Look Closer
Over at Brain Pickings, Maria Popova talks with cognitive scientist Alexandra Horowitz about her new book On Looking, which is about the way sensory awareness impacts our perception of reality.…
Rotten Apples and Other Writerly Customs
Nearly any creative writing course, teacher, or mentor will give you the same advice—writing is a solitary act and is different for every writer. However, some of us writers are…
Annie Dillard and the Art of the Essay
“Writers serve as the memory of a people. They chew over our public past.” Read an essay on Annie Dillard’s philosophy of the essay and its writer over at Brain…
The Gift of Understanding
Author and illustrator Wendy MacNaughton is featured on Brain Pickings for her new book, Meanwhile in San Francisco: A City in its Own Words. MacNaughton’s beautiful illustrations remind us of…
The Cliché of Leadership
Think about it. A real leader is somebody who, because of his own particular power and charisma and example, is able to inspire people, with ‘inspire’ being used here in…
Grimm Fairy Tales Just Got Grimmer
British art giant David Hockney is best known for pop-art paintings like A Bigger Splash, but he has also worked in many other mediums—including, it seems, illustrations for children’s books. Over…
The Truth About Dishonesty
Brain Pickings has an animate video to highlight Dan Ariely’s new book, The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty. Ariely writes in the book what causes our moral compass to go awry:…
Flannery O’Connor: Storyteller, Writer, and…Cartoonist?
Apparently from the age of 5 until entering the Iowa Writers Workshop, Flannery O’Connor was an avid cartoonist! Publishing in her high school and college publications, O’Connor’s drawings poke at…
Hear Virginia Woolf’s Voice
Over at Brain Pickings, Maria Popova highlights the only known recording of Virginia Woolf’s voice. In the recording, Woolf reads from an essay on craft (which Popova conveniently reprints in…
Advice from Vonnegut
Advice my father gave me: never take liquor into the bedroom. Don’t stick anything in your ears. Be anything but an architect. To celebrate Kurt Vonnegut, Maria Popova posted on…