Hazlitt
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Handwriting is Dead; Long Live Handwriting
Type is the same, instance after instance, and the font you choose today will look the same when you type in it again tomorrow. The same is not true for crafting prose or poetry by hand, each looping connection between…
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Not From This Dimension
Sarah Gerard interviews Ottesa Moshfegh for Hazlitt—among other concessions, Moshfegh admits that she’s “not from this dimension”: I’m like an alien in a human body. I come from a different place, a different plane of existence. I can’t explain that other place because I…
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Mat Johnson on Writing
In an interview with Tobias Carroll for Hazlitt magazine, Mat Johnson talks about writing, humor, and fantasy: But writing in general sometimes is like a dream. You might recognize things from your life and there are pieces of yourself in there, but…
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Word of the Day: Eschaton
(n.); the last thing, as a theological reference to the climax of history at Judgment Day; the day at the end of time following Armageddon when God will decree the fates of all human beings; from the ancient Greek eskhatos…
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Inherited Fear
Perhaps I never was a brave person, but I know that I was bolstered by the fact that if something didn’t bother my mom, I didn’t need to be bothered by it either. Now, our anxieties have bubbled up at…
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Mother Moore
In Hazlitt, Naomi Skwarna writes about using the writing of Lorrie Moore as a mother substitute: Living without a mother is a freedom by turns radical and excruciating. It is swimming in the ocean, and Moore’s writing was what made…
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The New Proust
I’m a Proustian in that sense, I believe in memories outside of consciousness, and this is just a way to find them. Writing is a way to get access to them. The thing you feel if you smell something, or…
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On Social Capital and Staying Hidden
Meander to Hazlitt for Linda Besner’s recent reading of Alfred Hermida’s Tell Everyone: Why We Share and Why it Matters. Besner’s critique is particularly concerned with the role of anonymity in a new, social-media-dominated landscape: Social media, in other words,…
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Racists Are Less Creative
Comparing cognitive tests like the Duncker Candle Problem against views of racial essentialism reveals that racists lack certain problem solving skills, reports Hazlitt: Creativity is fundamentally the ability to recombine old ideas, moving beyond preexisting categories in order to create…
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Internships and the Hegemonic Authority
While the unpaid internship is finally facing scrutiny from courts and government commissions, simply eliminating those positions doesn’t solve the problem of privilege. Further, reliance on a privileged class threatens both the publishing industry and society as a whole: Media organizations, like…
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“On Writing A Creep”
Jowita Bydlowska muses about how authors can bear to write about jerks, for Hazlitt. Assholes are necessary to a story in the sense that their baffling behavior makes for a better story. However, getting into the mind frame of these characters can cause…
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The Violet Flowers Motel
The Violet Flowers Motel is located in Brantford, Ontario, and is considered by some to be home to drug dealing and prostitution; to others, the motel is the site of violent murders; some think it a nice place, just off…