More Pale King

Authors photos “defeat the purpose of imaginative literature, in general, and of much poetry, in particular, because they invite us to get to know an author by something other than her creations in words,” poet Stephen Burt argues. Pair with our own Edan Lepucki’s musings on the topic.

“Only the moon can judge Indiana. It’s a state that mostly gets ignored, and occasionally ridiculed, by the rest of the country, but no matter. Anyone is welcome to come here and see a reflection of themselves in the unlikeliest places, no matter what any law says.” Adam Fleming Petty on “Writing from the Nowhere State.”

At Page-Turner, Daphne Merkin reads Catherine Lacey’s Nobody Is Ever Missing, which follows the journey of a disenchanted New Yorker as she hitchhikes her way through New Zealand. The novel, Merkin writes, features what Leslie Jamison, in her recent essay collection, termed a “post-wounded woman.”