Tag Archives: writers

On David Foster Wallace’s Birthday

[CC licensed image by darkpatator] Eighteen months ago– a day after his suicide– I packed up every David Foster Wallace authored book, every journal, magazine, and photocopied piece of ephemera he appeared in, and everything else I could find with … Continue reading

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Mini-Anthologies

[image by almomody]  I’ve recently enjoyed Steven D. Schroeder’s “mini-anthologies” of Weldon Kees and Alan Dugan. What a great project… a simple idea, but one that sits right in the sweet spot of what the “read/write web” can be: a … Continue reading

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Pat the Baker – Toast Images

Something you don’t see every day: portraits of literary icons made of toast. Pictured are Yeats, Wilde, and Beckett.

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RIP: Deborah Digges

[photo by Pascal B] Sad news… poet Deborah Digges has (apparently) committed suicide. A poem of Deborah’s: “The Leaves” I can bless a death this human, this leaf the size of my hand. From the life-line spreads a sapped, distended … Continue reading

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Nick Hornby and Ben Folds Collaborate!

[Ben Folds pic by deovolenti] Through a chain of circumstances too complicated to recount, I discovered a Paper Cuts Blog playlist by Nick Hornby, perpetual resident on my “reliable favorite authors” shortlist, in which he alluded to collaborating with a … Continue reading

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RIP: Donald Finkel

image “borrowed” from stlog Donald Finkel is one of those poets I’ve yet to get around to seriously reading but whose poems stand out enough that I actually remember them long after serendipitously discovering them in journals such as The … Continue reading

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Lolita at 62

[1955 cover from WikiMedia Commons] Dolores Haze– the “nymphet” of Vladimir Nabokov’s greatest novel (rightfully found in many lists of best novels)– would be 62 this year… in America at least, where Lolita wasn’t published until 1958. [photo via David … Continue reading

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RIP: Madeleine L’Engle

Author of perhaps the only great novel that actually begins “it was a dark and stormy night,” Madeleine L’Engle has died. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that I owe a significant portion of the good things in my … Continue reading

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Prose Before Hos

Hey, how often does a new t-shirt come out that includes Shakespeare and The Ladies? Ahh, to be young again…

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Monkey Sighting: Harold Taw

Via First Draft a snippet from Mark Taw’s This I Believe entry: I could say that I believe in America because it rewarded my family’s hard work to overcome poverty. I could say that I believe in holding on to … Continue reading

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RIP: Kurt Vonnegut

Another good one gone. Like many, I met Kurt Vonnegut through his much anthologized story, Harrison Bergeron. I was at the perfect age to read it: old enough to understand that this was a different kind of story– one of … Continue reading

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Martin Amis – Yellow Dog and LOLs

I’m just about done with Yellow Dog and really don’t understand all the poor reviews. It’s funny, merciless, and like most of Amis’ work almost off-handedly brilliant. Every other paragraph (and sometimes every other sentence) reveals some kind of little … Continue reading

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How to Speak a Book

Richard Powers on why he never touches a keyboard unless he has to, speech recognition, and the power and utility of the human voice.

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Reading Like a Writer

I’m about 1/3 of the way through Francine Prose’s book Reading Like a Writer and I’m already comfortable recommending it. The subtitle “A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them” is apt– you … Continue reading

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Ian McEwan, Plagiarist. Plain and Simple.

Jack Shafer has it just about completely right in his article calling Ian McEwan to task for his plagiarism of Lucilla Andrews’ memoir No Time for Romance. It’s simple: McEwan stole significant pieces of Andrews’ creation and used them in … Continue reading

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