The Atlantic
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The Last Laugh
Memoirist (and former editor-at-large of McSweeney’s) Sean Wilsey talks to The Atlantic about his essay collection, More Curious, and why humor writing resonates: I think there’s something dishonest about writing that isn’t funny. I can’t engage with a piece of work without an element of humor…
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The Future of the Book
Two art professors at Eastern Michigan University are exploring what a book is and what it will be in the future in their Open Book Project, which has thus far involved an exhibition, a 248-page book, and workshops where artists…
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Cents and Sensibility
While readers today might think of Jane Austen novels as the equivalent of 18th century bodice rippers, money, wealth, and economics played a major role both in their creation and in their narrative. Austen wrote as much for financial benefit…
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The Act of Un-Erasing
For the Atlantic, Shawn Miller argues that what we decide to erase, through our technology, is often more enlightening that what is kept. Drawing an analogy between Middle Age palimpsests and a 19th-century Italian priest, Angelo Mai, who dedicated his…
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The Very Short Story
In the Atlantic, Lydia Davis deconstructs two drafts of an early short story, showing how even something as minimal as a sentence or a paragraph can have a narrative arc.
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Literature as Ideal Propaganda
During the Cold War, the CIA viewed literature as a potent tool to undermine the Soviet Union. Novels by George Orwell, Albert Camus, Vladimir Nabokov, and James Joyce were smuggled across borders. And, as Nick Romeo explains in the Atlantic,…
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Political Fiction, Without a Capital P
Political fiction can come across as heavy-handed, but avoiding all politics in writing may overlook the fact that people lead political lives. Over at the Atlantic, author Molly Antopol talks about how reading the fiction of Grace Paley taught her…
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21st Century Poetry Written in 1964
The 50th anniversary edition of Lunch Poems, the collection written by Frank O’Hara in 1964, has caught attention recently over at The Atlantic. The book has always been important to New Yorkers, and evidently it still is—in 2012, it was…
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Remembering the Blue and the Gray
Memorial Day is a time of both national reflection and diverse local tradition. In a piece connecting poetry and community storytelling, The Atlantic offers some literary history in observance of this past weekend’s holiday. Two years after the end of…
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Why Libraries Matter
Love libraries? So do we. Know someone who thinks physical libraries will eventually disappear? Have them watch this mini-documentary, Why Libraries Matter, over at the Atlantic. A look at a day in the life of New York City’s public libraries…
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Reading: Still Probably a Good Idea
We linked to an Atlantic article in January about the recent decline in readers in America. According to the article, 23 percent of Americans went without reading a single novel in 2013. Now, Time has a summary of a recent study of reading’s…
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Licking Vladimir’s Stamps
It may seem a little outdated to invoke Vera Nabokov’s name, but most writers seem to agree on the need for a “Vera”—a partner or friend, willing to edit and support. In the Atlantic this week, Koa Beck explores the legend of the do-it-all…