New York Times
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Amy Bloom, Clearly and Persuasively
In the latest “By the Book” over at the New York Times, Amy Bloom talks about the books on her nightstand, which writers she’d invite to a summer picnic (even if they wouldn’t get along), and the book she wishes someone…
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Keep Failing
Don’t let that stack of rejection letters get you down. For writers of all kinds—would-be, struggling, under-appreciated, even critically acclaimed—failure is part of the job description. At the New York Times, Stephen Marche describes a writing profession riddled with disappointment and…
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Who are the Poet Laureates?
After the recent dust-up over North Carolina’s poet laureate, the New York Times takes a look at 45 state poet laureates to see who they are and just what exactly it is they do.
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Unlocking the New Yorker
Those little blue padlocks are gone for good. Starting this week, newyorker.com will release all its content to the public, free of charge, until summer’s end. Unfortunately for subscription commitment-phobes, the site will then transition to a metered paywall system…
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140 Keystrokes
It’s hard to go a day without the question, does poetry matter? crop up somewhere, and if you’re in the mood for a longread, David Lehman has written an excellent essay on anxiety about poetry, in an Internet age. Is…
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Does Poetry Matter?
Yesterday’s New York Times posed this question to poetry superstars Tracy K. Smith, Martin Espada, William Logan, Paul Muldoon, Sandra Beasley, Patrick Rosal, and our own David Biespiel. Whether by “educat[ing] the senses,” combatting irony, or “ritualiz[ing] human life,” suffice…
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From Nerd Game to Literary Glory
The role-playing fantasy game, Dungeons & Dragons, has just turned 40. And along with its enduring popularity comes a literary legacy: For certain writers, especially those raised in the 1970s and ’80s, all that time spent in basements has paid…
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Learning Curves
Have you ever regretted the way in which you once wrote? In this week’s New York Times “Bookends” column, Anna Holmes and Leslie Jamison take this question on. A few early mistakes, as listed by Holmes: Inserting myself into reported narratives…
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Word of the Day: Didapper
(n.) commonly, a little grebe or dabchick, a small water bird that dives underwater; also, a name for someone who disappears for a time before bobbing up again His papers looked organized, from the outside, they weren’t messy, but there…
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Indie Bookstores Win Amazon/Hachette War
The ongoing battle between Amazon and Hachette has been a boon for independent booksellers. Hachette’s refusal to capitulate to Amazon’s demands has meant that big-name books, like J.K. Rowling’s latest mystery The Silkworm (published under the pen name Robert Galbraith), can’t be…
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A Sea of Heroes
In the New York Times Sunday Book Review, Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin and the new novel TransAtlantic, talks about which books made him laugh, which made him cry, and which he’d like to live in.…
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Inside a Writer’s Head
New research reveals how a creative writer’s brain functions while writing. As it turns out, it might not be so different from a basketball player’s brain. The New York Times has the whole story.