criticism
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Ban “Bravery” from Book Jackets
David Ulin at the LA Times makes interesting argument for retiring the word “brave” from jacket copy. Citing its overuse and the seeming dissonance of describing literature as brave in the face of countless acts of bravery in the world beyond…
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Always Read the Comments
Art isn’t just for fans, which means that it’s not just for the knowledgeable, but for passersby as well. Expertise, then, seems an excuse to make everyone talk about the same things in the same way. For the LA Review…
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Writing Workshops Defined
If you’re ready to join a writing workshop or you’re thinking about it, you’ll surely want to know what may happen to you while attending one. That’s why Amy Klein compiled on a handy glossary of commonly-uttered workshop criticisms along…
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Dr. Critic and Mr. Novelist
Can a good critic be a good novelist too? Daniel Mendelsohn and Leslie Jamison, who both have written both fiction and non-fiction, answer this question in the weekly Bookend column for the New York Times’s Sunday Review. Though their ideas differ, the…
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Gender, literature, and criticism
Women’s work has always been awesome, just as the work written by people of color, minorities, and other classes of people who aren’t white men has been. The work of white men has been awesome, too, but it has benefitted…
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The Rumpus Interview with Elizabeth Gilbert
This is how I think of it: there’s a contract between you and the mystery. And the mystery is the thing that brings life to the work.
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How Critics Affect Artists
An artist’s work can take years to complete, while a critic’s take on said art can be formulated in a matter of hours. This distinction is pointed out early on in Richard Brody’s discussion of criticism at The New Yorker. …
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The Week Social Media Broke My Heart
Do you still remember the Internet of last week, just another barrage of all-over-the-place political and cultural events in which millions of people watched, reacted and interacted online?
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When Criticism Becomes Disrespect
At The Book Beast, Sean Manning wonders why The New York Times Book Review “would review his memoir about his mother’s terrible illness in such a snarky and dismissive way.”
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Two Books from Helen Vendler
Long time Rumpus Reviewer Barbara Berman examines the two latest offerings from critic Helen Vendler, one on Emily Dickinson and the other on the last books from five of the 20th century’s finest poetic voices.
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The Life Of The Body: M Gessen’s Blood Matters
Grace Talusan reviews Masha Gessen’s fascinating but hard look at the decision to get a preventive mastectomy, in the context of Talusan’s own decision to get a preventive mastectomy.