RW EAST Dekalb Public Library Reading
This poetry reading was initiated by the Dekalb Public Library, as part of its Diversity in DeKalb series, and to celebrate National Poetry Month. It brought together a young poet, Jenny Sadre-Orafi,...
View ArticleAmazon Kindles in China, Jonathan Safran Foer on Technology and Compassion,...
Evan Smith Rakoff Novelist Jonathan Safran Foer examines how technology is shaping our humanity; the first photos have surfaced of Paul Thomas Anderson's screen adaptation of Pynchon's Inherent Vice;...
View ArticleTaming the Unruly
In a profile of Natasha Trethewey in the September/October 2012 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, contributing editor Kevin Nance quotes the poet laureate (who was elected to a second term on...
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Greg Bellow recounts the life of his father, the towering literary figure Saul Bellow, while Janna Malamud, the daughter of author Bernard Malamud, recalls her father at a recent event at Harvard Book...
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Evan Smith Rakoff L. Gordon Crovitz weighs in the on the DOJ’s e-book pricing lawsuit against Apple; Alexander Nazaryan shares his thoughts on our constant use of web-enabled devices; Apple unveiled...
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Royal Young
“I grew up on New York’s derelict Lower East Side in the early ’90s when it was still a neighborhood full of dangerous beauty. Hydrants blasted jets of water into the streets in summer heat and rap...
View ArticleAh Bartleby!
In Herman Melville's classic story "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" (1853), the character of the eponymous scrivener repeatedly says, "I would prefer not to," in response to requests...
View ArticleStory of a Street Poet
"Human beings are always going to want to create beautiful things. Language is one medium in which to do that. You can do it with paint, you can do it with clay, you can do it with words. It's all...
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Evan Smith Rakoff One page of Charlotte Brontë's French homework fetched almost eighty thousand dollars; Sherman Alexie sparked a Twitter deluge with one Tweet; Charlie Savage looks at the prison...
View ArticleCincinnati Review Contest Open for Submissions
TheCincinnati Review is currently accepting entries for its 2013 Robert and Adele Schiff Awards in Poetry and Prose. Two winners will each receive one thousand dollars and publication in the Cincinnati...
View ArticleBe Not Proud
"This is one of the few stories I’ve written for myself, about myself," wrote the late Sean Rowe in the introduction to his essay about his experiences in jail, "An Insider’s Guide to Jailhouse...
View ArticleOrwell's 1984
Richard from AbeBooks.com offers ten reasons why George Orwell's dystopian novel still resonates seven decades after its initial publication by Secker and Warburg in London.Video URL:...
View ArticlePoetry Drone, Twelve-Foot Mr. Darcy, and More
Evan Smith Rakoff Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch has resigned; Vikram Seth asked to return a $1.7 million advance; poet David Shook hopes to fund a Poetry Drone that will drop poems instead of...
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Alethea Black
“When I lived in NYC, my writing ritual was to ride the city bus. My favorite was the M104, which had both an uptown and a crosstown leg. Sometimes I’d ride all the way to the end of the line and back....
View ArticleTarah Scalzo
In this Single Sentence Animation from Electric Literature, James Willoughby animates the following sentence, from "Orange" by Tarah Scalzo: "Everyone knows a snow leopard is magical."Video URL:...
View ArticleApple Loses DOJ E-Book Price-Fixing Case, Harper Lee Lawsuit, and More
Evan Smith Rakoff Boris Kachka weighs in on the Penguin Random House merger; Shelf Awareness has an update in reclusive author Harper Lee's lawsuit against her former agent; Brain Pickings features a...
View ArticleDare to be Vulnerable
When writing about our own lives it is tempting to tamper with the truth. We worry about what our fathers, daughters, and even strangers will think of our weak moments. Don’t be afraid. Vulnerability...
View ArticleAnn Patchett
At this year's American Library Association conference, held June 27 to July 2 in Chicago, novelist Ann Patchett, whose most recent book is State of Wonder (Harper, 2011), talked about her "profoundly...
View ArticleJenji Kohan’s Adaptation of Piper Kerman’s Prison Memoir, Robin Black on...
Evan Smith Rakoff Jenji Kohan has adapted Piper Kerman’s Orange is the New Black for Netflix; Danielle Ofri discusses how poetry intersects with medicine; Sotheby’s auctioned Samuel Beckett’s first...
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