Podcatcher #3: Poetry Jawns
Emma Sanders and Alina Pleskova charm us with their affection for each other, DIY ethos, and belief on Poetry Jawns, what matters is the work.
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Posts Tagged: NPR
Remembering the Boxing Poet
He flipped similes and metaphors like a battle rapper holding court in a cipher that was his and his alone. Even his jabs were like couplets that told you more about yourself than you could have ever hoped to know. NPR reflects on the legacy of the late Muhammad Ali, an artist who fought for […]
...moreChildren’s Literature through the Centuries
At NPR Education, Byrd Pinkerton looks at the emergence of children’s literacy and literature, starting with 17th century learning primers through to the late 20th century’s complex young adult literature, all of which have helped define the idea of “childhood” through the centuries.
...moreLittle Worldly Wonders
In 2014, archivists discovered previously unpublished poems in the private collections of the late and great Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda. These found pieces will be available in English for the first time in Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda, available May 1. The beloved Chilean poet wrote on love, death, humanity, and also little […]
...moreYA Novels Help Parents Talk Sex
A discussion with your kid about the birds and the bees might be one of the more intimidating moments of parenthood, but YA novelists can lend a hand. When YA writers confront modern issues of sex, rape, consent, abuse, and gender, they help parents—and schools—introduce these sensitive topics: Consent doesn’t even have to be about sex, per se, […]
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Desiree Cooper
Desiree Cooper discusses her debut collection of flash fiction, Know the Mother, what mother-writers need, and why motherhood is the only story she’s ever told.
...moreSong of the Day: “Misunderstood”
The incredible cacophony of the bridge on Wilco’s definitive ballad “Misunderstood” is all the more striking because of its contrast with the rest of the tender, harmonious song. The brilliance of songwriter Jeff Tweedy is on full display here as the speaker laments his own bad attitude with a self-deprecating tone. A quiet and understated […]
...moreThe Truth about Memory
Once I decided I wasn’t going to stop if I flinched, I figured I was opening myself up to some hard stuff. So, when it came, I kind of expected it. Maybe some of the beautiful moments of my life surprised me. Because I knew it was going to be a dark book. But I’ve been […]
...moreA Love Born of Mystery
“I was looking at books… Gary and I had seen each other. We didn’t know one another. And he walked over to me in this particular bookstore and handed me a book by Teran and said, ‘You’ve gotta read this book, it’s really good.’” NPR shares the love story of Gary Shulze and Pat Frovarp, retiring owners […]
...moreAn Urban Sort of Loneliness
The Lonely City bristles with heart-piercing wisdom. Loneliness, according to Laing, feels “like being hungry when everyone around you is readying for a feast.” Later, she admits that at one point during her own hermetic existence in New York, “I felt like I was in danger of vanishing.” Thankfully The Lonely City goes far beyond a cry for […]
...moreCrime Girls
NPR explores whether and how putting “girl” in the title of your crime novel will garner favorable comparisons to heavy-hitters like Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train—and therefore benefit from an increase in sales: So in a way, the girl insignia is trying to tie it into this larger marketing […]
...moreFood Fit for a Pope
He loves Argentinian empanadas and dulce de leche. In 2015, he said that if he had only one wish, it would be to travel unrecognized to a pizzeria and have a slice—or two or three. In other words, he may be protected by the world’s smallest army and be responsible for the spiritual governance of […]
...moreBetween Two Worlds
“‘We have to leave the country,’ I informed my wife as I went over the final proofs. ‘We won’t be able to stay here after this book is published.’” NPR looks at the satirical novel/memoir Native by Sayed Kashua and explores how Kashua transverses the two different worlds that make up Jerusalem.
...moreDickens and the Lottery
If you’re disappointed you didn’t win the Powerball jackpot, head over to NPR to read Charles Dickens’s account of the lottery in Naples, an event he seemed to find both amusing and horrifying: Dickens heard of a man being thrown fatally from his horse, only to be pounced on by a punter—a person who places a […]
...more180,000 High-Res Pictures Are Worth A Lot of Words
The New York Public Library has made 180,000 high-res images available for download, and they’re challenging the public to come up with creative new uses for old pictures.
...moreShakespeare’s First Folio, Coming to a City Near You!
The Folger has 82 First Folios—the largest collection in the world. It’s located several stairways down, in a rare manuscript vault. To reach them, you first have to get through a fire door … (if a fire did threaten these priceless objects, it would be extinguished not with water—never water near priceless paper—but with a […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Dean Koontz
Dean Koontz talks about his newest novel, Ashley Bell, overcoming self-doubt, and “what this incredibly beautiful language of ours allows you to do.”
...moreIn Her Own Words
Over at NPR, authors Claire Vaye Watkins and Marlon James talk about Watkins’s recent essay, “On Pandering,” which she describes as: …internalizing the sexism that I’d encountered in the writing world, and the world beyond, and adjusting what I wrote accordingly so that it would be more well-received … by the people I wanted to […]
...moreArt as a Tool for Action
Over at NPR, Molly Crabapple discusses her new memoir Drawing Blood, her involvement in Occupy Wall Street, and how she became a political artist: …for a long time I felt like going to protests was the same as—you know, when people go to church but they don’t really believe in God? But they think, oh, better […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Debra Monroe
Debra Monroe talks about her new memoir, My Unsentimental Education, the future of the genre, and how the Internet has changed what it means to be human.
...moreGloria Steinem Hits the Road
The road has been viewed as a male turf. If you think of the classic “Odyssey,” of, you know, classical literature or Jack Kerouac or almost any road story, it’s really about a man on the road. There’s an assumption that the road is too dangerous for women. NPR talks to Gloria Steinem about her […]
...moreA Misreading of Misery
NPR traces the history of Stephen King’s Misery from the novel, to the film, and, most recently, to the stage, and argues that this journey may have caused the story t0 lose a few key components: It is almost literally drained of blood and, more important, it is drained of urgency.
...moreLove Letters and the Long Con
This is a story is about a con that unfolded very slowly over two decades. When the con was finally exposed, some of the victims defended the people who had been fooling them. They preferred to believe the lie. NPR’s Hidden Brain podcast recently featured an episode called “The Heart Wants What It Wants,” a […]
...moreCook Like a Prisoner
In prison, Gustavo “Goose” Alvarez learned to love ramen. Now Alvarez has a book of recipes based on his time in prison, interspersed with stories like the time when food saved his life during a race riot: “They were stuck there for hours, freezing in the cold,” Alvarez says of his would-be attackers. “This older […]
...moreMany Happy Returns, Gregor Samsa!
My favorite version of the text—if only because it was the one that came to me when I most needed it—is the 1972 edition, translated and edited by Stanley Corngold, that my uncle handed me that day in Bogotá. Over at NPR, Juan Vidal writes about his love for Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its release.
...moreSupporting Black Male Teachers
Elissa Nadworny at NPR’s Education Team interviews a researcher and former teacher, Travis Bristol, on the decline of black men in the teaching profession. Bristol’s research discovered that, in several cities, the overall number of black teachers had fallen and the largest loss was among black male teachers. Bristol discusses the minimized roles available for […]
...moreA Podcast Becomes A Novel
In Night Vale, people experience several realities at once — and so do I, writing this review with a strange sort of triple vision. NPR reviews Welcome to Night Vale, a novel based on the popular (and surreal) podcast of the same name.
...moreIs It Safe Out There?
NPR claims the battle between e-books and print may finally be over.
...moreR.L. Stine’s Deep Dark Secret
In advanced of the release of the Goosebumps movie, NPR’s Colin Dwyer reveals that children’s author R.L. Stine originally hoped to write humor: “I started when I was 9. I don’t know, I was this weird kid. I found a typewriter, I dragged it into my room and I would just stay in my room, typing — typing […]
...moreWow, Such Meme, Much Apocalypse
It’s good fun to imagine a meme taking down humanity. NPR reviews James Tynion IV’s new graphic novel Memetic, a tale of an apocalypse that kicks off with a seemingly innocuous internet meme.
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