Roald Dahl
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The Experience Takes Its Shape from You: Talking with Naima Coster
Naima Coster discusses her debut novel, Halsey Street, getting pushback on her use of Spanish, and the importance of equity and inclusion in higher education.
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Writer, Storyteller, Pilot, Spy
Though he fled the country as soon as possible, the writer would maintain an affection for Canada that lasted throughout his life. Over at The Walrus, Michael Hingston explores Roald Dahl’s time at Camp X—a World War II army base…
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It’s Scrumdiddlyumptious
The Oxford English Dictionary is doing its part to celebrate Roald Dahl’s 100th birthday by including some of his most memorable made-up words in the new edition, according to the Guardian: Michael Proffitt, chief editor of the OED, said: “The inclusion…
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Roald Dahl’s Hidden Village Home
Take a stroll through the storybook town of Great Missenden, a tiny village in the county of Buckinghamshire in Britain, and the home of children’s literature’s grand-wizard, Roald Dahl, in the latter half of his life. For Hazlitt, Michael Hingston…
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Tinker, Tailor, Novelist, Spy
It is not so surprising that so many writers have worked in intelligence. Writers create plots; spies uncover them. In a sense, all writers function like spies—observing the people around them, studying character types, becoming flies-on-the-wall for the purpose of…
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Kloss, Kish, and the Great White Whale
Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake aside, it’s hard to imagine a more mutualistic artist-writer pair than Robert Kloss and Matt Kish. (The Rumpus also recommends the duo of Casey Scieszka and Steven Weinberg.) Kloss and Kish (who also illustrated every…
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I’ll Have an Everlasting Gobstopper With My Big Mac, Please
Young British bibliophiles may have found the Golden Ticket. In a six-week campaign backed by the National Literacy Trust (NLT), McDonald’s will offer chapters from Roald Dahl’s books with its Happy Meals. The Rumpus would choose Matilda over a Lego…
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Why Matilda Got Her Measles Shot
Since much of the rhetoric around recent outbreaks of the measles revolves around concern for the well-being of children, perhaps the strongest advocate to answer our concerns is a beloved author of children’s literature. The Guardian shares an emotional letter…
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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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Author Roboto
At Melville House, Liam O’Brien delves into the fictional and factual history of book-writing computers, from Roald Dahl’s “The Great Automatic Grammatizator” to the Russian computer that rewrote Anna Karenina in the style of Murakami. With some media outlets already…
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Roald Dahl: Fighter Jet Pilot
Who would’ve thunk it? Though WWII explains the Oompa Loompas. All the same, it’s hard to imagine Dahl, Ian Fleming, and William Stephenson as contemporaries, yet the three were apparently acquainted by the war. It’s usually macho men like Ernest…
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To the Bar!
We’ve all gotten texts like these, though perhaps not from these particular writers… Jessie Gaynor’s “More Drunk Texts from Famous Authors,” over at the Paris Review, features the fictitious (and very buzzed) Roald Dahl, T.S Eliot, and William Blake, among others.