NPR
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The Rumpus Interview with Gina Nahai
Gina Nahai talks about her fifth novel, The Luminous Heart of Jonah S., Iran and Los Angeles, and the possibility of a long-sought-after peace in the Middle East.
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Serial: A Rumpus Roundup
This American Life spinoff Serial is a nonfiction podcast told over multiple episodes. Premiering back in October, Serial explores the case of Adnan Syed, who has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. Much…
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A Chaucer Christmas
To the sound of silver trumpets, knokke thrice on the doore. When thy distant relaciouns emerge, present them publiquely wyth the gifte of a fullye-funded pilgrimage to the locacioun of their choyce. NPR shares some old school holiday wysdom from…
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Anderson Doesn’t “Cut and Paste”
In an interview for NPR, director Paul Thomas Anderson shares his experience adapting Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice for the big screen: I approached it in the most straightforward but laborious way I could come up with. I transcribed the dialogue… And there were…
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Jacqueline Woodson and the End of the World
I think I was pretty nervous about it as a kid. I think I did [have] that fear of the world coming to an end. I think also it’s kind of how kids exist anyway, you know? You’re always fearing…
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The Year of Vaping
The Oxford Dictionaries “Word of the Year” has been announced, and young people around the world will be called upon to explain the word “vape”—and its significance as part of cultural shifts surrounding marijuana and tobacco—to their older relatives in…
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Word of the Day: Epimythium
(n.); the moral appended to the end a story or fable; from the Greek epi (“upon”) + muthos (“story, fable”) “Once upon a time there was a princess who went out into the forest and sat down at the edge…
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Books Inspire Better Listicles
Millennials may love their listicles, memes, and Internet kitsch, but they also love books. A new Pew study has shown the Millennials are more likely to read than older generations. And all those books are fodder for less serious content,…
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If Scarlett O’Hara had a Cell Phone
For NPR, Neda Ulaby sits down with Mallory Ortberg to talk about Texts from Jane Eyre, Ortberg’s new book that speculates what literature’s best-known characters might text if they owned cell phones. “I just immediately thought, ‘Oh God, Scarlett O’Hara with a cell phone…
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Witch Hunts, Past and Present
In the new Penguin Book of Witches, Katherine Howe assembles documents from three centuries of witch hunts—including arrest warrants, trial transcripts, and even apologies from a judge and jury in Salem. Per Genevieve Valentine at NPR, the historical record opens…
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Book Tour Ticketgate
Lena Dunham launched her collection of personal essays, Not that Kind of Girl, yesterday. At NPR, the filmmaker, actress, and author discusses oversharing, sexual assault, and pornography. Dunham did not get through the week without controversy, though. Gawker wrote up a click-bait attack…
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Mastering the Short Story
…short stories [are] a venerable form, but it’s diabolically hard to master. There’s a lot of apprenticeship in writing stories. And sometimes a story can take such a long time to write — I mean, months and months. … It’s…