Lists

Five Ways Being a Writer and Professional Skateboarder Are the Same

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The boundary between mental and physical pain is very permeable. I managed to break a small bundle of bones, but I’d take fracturing my wrist over working doggedly for four years on a novel before realizing in one grisly flash that it is utterly unsalvageable.
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The Millions Interview

Empathy Is What Gives You Access: The Millions Interviews John Vaillant

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Many Latin American immigrants could tell us stories if we took the time to listen to them. The trouble is, if we did, and we really took these stories in, it would be much harder to rationalize the billions of dollars spent “securing the border” against a conveniently faceless menace.
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Books as Objects

Judging Books by Their Covers 2015: US Vs. Netherlands

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I was recently looking at the covers of Dutch-language books. Despite our different cultures, we share many overlaps in our literary taste. I hoped that I could draw some conclusions about those tastes by comparing book covers. After spending way too much time on the task, I conclude that I can’t.
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The Millions Interview

Artifacts of the Present: The Millions Interviews Emily St. John Mandel

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I’m fascinated by the phenomenon where three people will witness the same event and remember it in three completely different ways. Structuring a book in a non-linear fashion with multiple points of view allows me to revisit the same plot points from completely different angles.
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Annals of Japery

How to Tweet Like Boris from The Goldfinch

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Apply nicknames to anyone at any time. They should come from references to your life, rather than theirs. Spend time convincing others of things with an exclamation point, especially when you know to opposite to be true. Remember that the weather is always against you. It singles you out.
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On Poetry The Millions Interview

How to Be Alone: The Millions Interviews Tanya Davis

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No matter how people approach loneliness or solitude or community, we all do. We’re not that different from each other. The way we experience it is different, but we all experience love, pain, loneliness.
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Essays

A Forgotten Bestseller: The Saga of John Williams’s Stoner

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What is the story of Stoner? How does an American book first published in 1965 go on to become a bestseller in the Netherlands in 2013?
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The Millions Interview

Is There a Truth and Does it Matter? An Interview with Tanis Rideout

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I always assume everything that I read is fiction, even if it’s in the non-fiction section. The very notion of putting something on paper means that you are creating a narrative.
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Reviews

Faith and Fiction: The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

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This is the story of a woman living out her last days in exile with the excruciating memory of watching the torture and crucifixion of her only son. In Tóibín’s hand, the Virgin Mary is more than her role as a mother or a symbol. Instead, she becomes the most interesting of creatures: a credible human.
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The Millions Interview

How Should a Writer Be? An Interview with Sheila Heti

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The career of a writer is always an exception. There is never one way it happens, but the temptation to draw conclusions from another writer's experience is always there.
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