An Ethnography of the Self: Talking with Morgan Parker
Morgan Parker discusses her writing process, approaching an idea from various forms, and how moving from NYC to L.A. has changed her work.
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Posts Tagged: inspiration
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #98: Nicky Nodjoumi
Though some readers of The Rumpus may not have heard of Nicky Nodjoumi, in his native Iran he has achieved the status of a rock star.
...moreWeekly Geekery
If a weasel can shut down the Large Hadron Collider, we can finish that novel. And barring any more weasel problems, the future of physics is very exciting. Did you celebrate email debt forgiveness day? Fake hackers make more money than you. Your procrastination is making Facebook rich.
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The Rumpus Interview with Robyn Schiff
Robyn Schiff talks about her collection A Woman of Property, the long con of “owning” land, her passion for early novels, how motherhood changed her poetry, and the generative powers of form.
...moreVonnegut’s Secret Weapon
Without his wife Jane’s faith and encouragement in his writing, it’s highly likely we wouldn’t know Kurt Vonnegut’s name from Adam. The New Yorker explores Jane’s influence on her husband throughout his career as an author. Kurt was more pragmatic, casting about for career ideas—teaching, reporting, opening a library with a bar. Jane had just […]
...moreDebut Novelists and the Books That Shaped Them
Lit Hub asked the seven first-time novelists shortlisted for the 2015 Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize what book inspired them to become the authors they are today. Sophie McManus says, I was ten and reading A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin when the understanding that I’d make my life with books […]
...moreDave Davies on Inspiration
The Kinks’s Dave Davies took a minute out of his Ripping Up New York City tour to talk to LA Record about inspiration. “It’s a kind of process—I find melancholery really really useful,” Davies said. “It’s a way of remembering and trying to construct something hopeful for the future.”
...moreThe Struggle for Literary Inspiration
Few writers are as prolific as Joyce Carol Oates, and over at the New York Review of Books, she masterfully tackles the concept of inspiration throughout an impressive span of literary history, covering Plato, Dickinson, Joyce, Woolf, James. Her take? The chase for inspiration is a battle for survival. “Inspiration” is an elusive term. We […]
...moreIt’s Hard Out Here for a Poet
Years ago, I had this great photo of a storm spiral over Antarctica. It was a full-page photo I ripped out of a magazine, probably a National Geographic, and which I eventually lost somewhere. But I think of it every once in a while—fairly regularly, actually. It’s weird. William Stobb talks to the Kenyon Review […]
...moreThe Poetic Power of Pedestrians
By merely wandering, the dérivist frustrates the spatial logic of capitalism, in the process discovering new currents, fissures, and vortices of possibility within a deeply familiar space. Wandering and drifting have long been championed as means of inspiration, but how does that figure into the politics and configuration of our literature? Over at Full Stop, […]
...moreGrief Turned Into Writing
Trauma brought me to the page, it is that simple. It’s a familiar story to hear writers becoming inspired over suffering, but it’s rare to read about it with precision. Over at The Millions, Lidia Yuknavitch writes with startling clarity on how her miscarriage launched her into writing.
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F*** the Myth of Motivation
The motivation crisis is different for each place on the path, but it is as toxic as it is ubiquitous.
...moreArt and Letters
At The Millions, seven writers share the visual inspiration they keep in their writing spaces, whether an illustration to capture the mood of a novel-in-progress, a photo reminding them of what they’re working for, or a note sternly reminding them to work.
...moreFinding Inspiration in Weird Places
At this point, everyone knows about the Amtrak Residency, but the Smithsonian highlights some other unusual places artists can seek their inspiration, including a shack on the beach and a container on a cargo ship.
...moreJust Do the Hard Things
Sara Benincasa has some inspiring words over at Medium: You must tell people exactly what you want from them if you have any hope that they will give it to you. I asked people to review my book (well, my publisher asked them to review my book) in the hopes that everyone would love it and […]
...moreInfluence Without Anxiety
Inspiration comes from many sources, including the books we read. As we internalize other authors’s work, they inevitably influence our writing (often without us ever knowing). The novelist Kim Triedman explores the relationship writers have to the books they read at Beyond the Margins: As writers, we read and are enriched, see possibilities for language […]
...moreLiterature in Your Skin
If you need a few minutes to break away from your day, why don’t you head on over to Tattoo Lit, where the word is made flesh. It is updated regularly with submissions of tattoos inspired by literature. Virginia Woolf, Shakespere, and even Shel Silverstein are represented.
...moreDemanding a Degree of Strangeness
“It might be your own past, or even just the tomb of someone you’d forgotten and who, awakened from the deep slumber of oblivion, comes to life and steps onto the page and, like a magician, plucks out of the air something amazing for you to write about. “But attempt this too early and you’ll […]
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