The Other!
Shakespeare did it. Flannery O’Connor did it. Jonathan Franzen does it all the time. Every playwright, short story writer, and novelist does it as a matter of course, yet there is still plenty of debate over the writer’s right to…
Category: Fiction
The Fiery Wisdom of Cynthia Ozick, Literary Fanatic
It’s said of the James brothers that William wrote philosophy like a novelist and Henry wrote novels like a philosopher. Something similar came to mind while reading Cynthia Ozick’s essay, “W. H. Auden at the 92nd Street Y” in her…
YA Wednesday: YA Books to Get You Pumped for the Summer Olympics, You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott, Great YA Horror Reads by Women
Between the Zika virus and the latest warnings for Olympic athletes not to put their heads under the water in Brazil because it is full of disgusting stuff I’d rather not talk about here, it feels like the summer Olympics…
Best writing podcasts to boost your craft
My wife called me over to the garage and pointed down to a piece of machinery the size of a fist. “I think it fell out of the car,” she said. The metal thingamajig was pointy on one end and…
Camp Tin House
I never went to summer camp. I always wondered what it was like, that thing that other kids in other places got to do. My mom couldn’t afford it. Instead, my brother and I spent our summers trying to stay…
My Legacy of Lying
I come from a long line of liars. My grandfather, a Russian potato farmer, was conscripted into the army in World War I to serve on the eastern front. Most of the soldiers couldn’t read or write, but my grandfather…