The Guardian
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What’s in a Name?
Back in the day, many writers adopted a pen name to “tell the truth without fear.” For some contemporary writers (e.g. J.K. Rowling/Robert Galbraith or the enigmatic Elena Ferrante), writing under a pseudonym is still liberating. But are pseudonyms going…
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To Talk To a Mockingbird
In 1978, while writing Gregory Peck’s biography, Michael Freedman had the privilege of talking on the phone with Harper Lee, resulting in possibly the only interview the author ever gave. Now, he writes about their conversation over at the Guardian: I…
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On My Way to Where the Air Is Sweet
Manzano’s gift to us, the power of her presence, lies in the fullness of Maria’s humanity. While still being proudly brown and representing Nuyorican excellence in all its glory, Maria never became a caricature, never boxed herself into the facile…
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Looking Back on Frank Herbert’s Dune
The idea for the novel Dune evolved from a magazine article Frank Herbert began researching about the government’s efforts to stabilize shifting sand dunes on Oregon’s coast in 1959. At the Guardian, Hari Kunzru looks at how the science fiction…
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The Gods of Southern Gothic
At the Guardian, author M.O. Walsh tries to account for the global popularity of southern gothic literature. While he attributes much of southern gothic literature’s success to a tradition of oral storytelling, he also suggests that it is the southern novelist’s…
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Earn Fractions of a Penny With Amazon
Last month Amazon announced it planned on paying authors participating in its lending library program by number of pages read. The system is intended to encourage better content and reward longer works. Now, the Guardian reveals that some payments to…
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How to Chart a Course Through the Metaphors in Your Mind
Why do we refer to our minds in terms of seas and cartography, anyway? Find out by consulting your sextant and the first online metaphor map. The chart boasts over 14,000 metaphorical connections, sourced from 4,000,000 lexical data points by…
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Harry Potter Headed to the Stage
J.K. Rowling announced on Twitter that she is writing a new play to tell portions of Harry’s stories that the books skipped over. The new stage show include Harry’s parents, Lily and James Potter, but Rowling stressed it is not…
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Keep It Simple
Recently, several novelists have criticized the primary curriculum in the UK for teaching a brand of creative writing that is too “complex.” For the Guardian, Ella Slater explains why she agrees with such criticism, arguing that her primary education has made writing simple and…
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Evil Loves Tomorrow
What I do know is that love reckons with the past and evil reminds us to look to the future. Evil loves tomorrow because peddling in possibility is what abusers do. At my worst, I know that I’ve wanted the…
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The Light and Shadows of Truth
The true identity of Italian novelist Elena Ferrante invites much speculation, especially in light of her recent nomination for Italy’s most prestigious literary award. But for Ferrante, the decision to write in the shadows may be a liberating one. The…
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Honest About the Body
At the Guardian, Sarah Hughes profiles young adult author Louise O’Neill, whose novels Only Ever Yours and Asking For It have received acclaim for embracing “dark themes” surrounding body image, sex, and social media: When I wrote Only Ever Yours it was at a time when I was…