the new yorker
-
When Life Gives Critics Lemons
In the New Yorker, Richard Brody laments how little coverage there is of independent film in mainstream media. If film culture is to change for the better, he argues, critics need to step out of their comfort zone and focus…
-
The Psychic Sasquatch
Most libraries have limited physical shelf space, so if they want to purchase new books for their collections, often they have to remove some old ones. Two librarians, Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner, know this can be a tough pill for…
-
Miracle and Magic
Check out Deborah Treisman in lively conversation with Lara Vapnyar on the “miracle of a New York City adventure,” the bewitching, wish-granting power of Leonard Cohen’s songs, and Russian immigrants. Vapnyar’s forthcoming novel, Still Here, explores Russian culture in the…
-
Poetry in Paradox
The title of experimentalist poet Rosmarie Waldrop’s new book, Gap Gardening (New Directions), is “classic Waldrop, a phrase that asserts its meaning by undoing itself,” writes Dan Chiasson for the New Yorker. Waldrop is among those who “track the nanotech of language,…
-
Illuminating Poetry
Because Holzer now thinks of herself mostly as a reader, rather than a writer, she is happiest reimagining space with light, color, and form suffusing it, while a powerful beam is projecting poetry into the night—poetry with all its paradoxes,…
-
A Poet’s Arrival
The New Yorker profiles Ocean Vuong, who muses on the English language, growing up around women, Frank O’Hara, and the vestigial nature of clichés. And with his first book of poetry published just last week, he addresses the feelings of strangeness…
-
Maggie Nelson’s Flow
Hilton Als of the New Yorker speaks with Maggie Nelson and her partner Harry Dodge about the continuum of life, work, love, and gender. Nelson’s most recent book, The Argonauts, rises with the tides of her own transformation in pregnancy, and Dodge’s…
-
Dad’s Friend
Charlie knows people, and he could introduce you to some important connections. Why don’t you spend a weekend at his house?
-
Rich Enough That I Don’t Have to Tell ‘Em That I’m Rich
Since its publication twenty years ago, Frances Mayes’s memoir Under the Tuscan Sun has transformed its namesake Italian setting into a sort of synonym for a wealthy lifestyle. Travel writer Jason Wilson revisited the work only to discover exactly the charms…
-
Blocking Writer’s Block
The New Yorker’s Maria Konnikova reveals the cause of writer’s block, the psychological state of those that have it and those that don’t, and how to combat it: …many symptoms of writer’s block are the kinds of problems psychiatrists think about.…
-
The Rumpus Interview with Kathleen Spivack
Poet Kathleen Spivack discusses releasing her debut novel Unspeakable Things at age seventy-seven.