New York Times
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Poetry’s Dirty Secret
The dirty secret of poetry is that it is loved by some, loathed by many, and bought by almost no one. Is poetry still valuable? William Logan thinks so, and tells us why in an essay in last weekend’s New York…
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Judges Release Sherlock
Sherlock Holmes has been freed by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The estate of Arthur Conan Doyle claimed copyright over the character who first appeared in 1887 and has appeared in more than fifty-six stories and four novels. The…
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A Reading with Music and Pictures
In an interview with the New York Times, Neil Gaiman discusses his upcoming reading at Carnegie Hall where he will read from his novella, The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains. What’s so special about the reading? It will…
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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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Handwriting Matters
A new scientific study has demonstrated that learning to write by hand before learning to type helps in developing children’s brains, and the benefits stretch from childhood to adulthood memory-wise. Psychologist (and Rumpus interviewee) Maria Konnikova explains on the New York Times: Cursive…
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Lightning and Lawn Debris
No spoilers here, but Patricia Lockwood’s new poetry collection Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals is garnering significant praise. In the New York Times, Dwight Garner writes that: Patricia Lockwood’s sexy, surreal and mostly sublime poems seem to have been, as James Joyce said in…
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The Power of Being Unknown
In the New York Times Book Review, Roger Rosenblatt shares some of the humiliations of being an often unrecognized writer. From poorly attended readings to interviewers who don’t know who he is, Rosenblatt could easily be jaded, but instead, he…
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Few Ever Venture As Far As the Border
Since I was old enough to set out on my own I have been an avid traveler. I turned this obsession into a profession seven years ago when I became a foreign correspondent for the New York Times… Nicolas Kulish, the…
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The Writer’s Writer
Karl Ove Knausgaard, the handsome Norwegian writer, is traveling through the U.S. giving talks and readings and interviews. It’s as good a time as any to start reading his 6-part autobiography, My Struggle, especially if you are a writer. As…
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The Hippie Pack Rat on Display
A New York Times journalist recently got a sneak-peek at “roughly 170 linear feet of manuscripts, reporter’s notebooks, newspaper clippings, sketches and other materials” that will comprise an upcoming archive of Tom Wolfe’s work at the New York Public Library. Thanks…
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Trigger Warning Literature
Requests by students at University of California Santa Barbara, Oberlin College, Rutgers University, University of Michigan, George Washington University, and other institutions for ““trigger warnings” on classroom literature has sparked an interesting debate. The New York Times has the full…