letter writing
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Portman’s Pen Pals
Apparently, Jonathan Safran Foer wasn’t the only one exchanging emails with Natalie Portman. At The Millions, Jacob Lambert shares excerpts from the supposed epistolary relationship between the actress and no less than American author Cormac McCarthy.
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(K)ink: Writing While Deviant: Ames Hawkins
Is it really that human capacity is limited? Or are we limited by what it is we believe we are able, and allow ourselves—are willing—to see?
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A Note about Love
Elegance is a refinement of simplicity rather than a flourish of excess. Elegance prompts wit rather than comedy, sentiment rather than sentimentality. Such restraint is the lens through which all the diffuse sensations of desire are focused into the flame…
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The Last Book I Loved: The Delicacy and Strength of Lace
In letter-writing, we are not really talking, but the words represent the deep-heldness of our communication.
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The Last Book I Loved: Dear Lil Wayne
During the eight months he was sentenced to Rikers Island, a poet named Lauren Ireland wrote postcards to Lil Wayne. The rapper never responded, but the writer compiled them into a tiny purple book.
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Chekhov in His Own Words
All that is nonsense though. Write what you like. If you haven’t facts make up with lyricism. In 1892, Anton Chekhov sent a letter to V. A. Tihonov including a fictitious 200-word bio. 123 years later to the day, the…
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Austen Family Letters
The LA Times reports that unpublished letters and poems from Jane Austen’s family have been acquired by the Huntington Library. While none of the letters are from Jane Austen herself, the correspondence will still “provide valuable insight into Jane Austen…
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Eschew Beastly Adjectives
A rediscovered 35-year-old letter from Roald Dahl dispenses advice to a young writer in his trademark irascible fashion. After scolding the letter writer for “asking to much of [him],” Dahl offers this and other craft gems: . . . eschew…
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Peeking at Leaks
The joy of reading other people’s mail is a well-known, well-documented phenomenon. Inspired by the Sony data hack, Lydia Kiesling investigates the pleasure of looking at famous people’s personal correspondence over at The Millions.
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Pen Pals with Eliot and Marx
For the Tin House blog, Heather Hartley spends the holiday season perusing letters between T.S. Eliot and Groucho Marx. Through their love of “good cigars” and a “weakness for making puns,” Eliot and Marx show a humorous affection that inspires Hartley to…
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A Losing Game
I imagined if I had been writing in the 1950s and 1960s, I, too, may have been writing for the pulps. I got the sense that [Jim] saw me as a kindred spirit, that I reminded him of himself as…
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(Not Really) Pleased To Meet You
The narrative of the encounter between James Joyce and Marcel Proust gets another tile added to its mosaic. Over at the London Review of Books blog, Ben Jackson reports on the legendary meeting as told by Vladimir Nabokov to his wife…