“Yeats wrote frankly about his vocation as a magician in several memoirs.” On how the occult drew in W. B. Yeats because “it was so deeply connected with his poetic craft.”
W.B. Yeats: Poet, Playwright, Magician
Whiting Award Recipients 2016
This year’s Whiting Award winners have been announced. The award recognizes “ten emerging writers of fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry, and are based on the criteria of early-career achievement and the promise of superior work to come.” The winners include Catherine Lacey (of Nobody Is Ever Missing); Alice Sola Kim (of Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying); and Ocean Vuong (of Night Sky with Exit Wounds, among other books).
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How Should an Interview Be?
My Millions social media teammate Emily M. Keeler is probably too humble to write a Curiosity about her kickass interview with Sheila Heti. But not I, dear readers! Not I.
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Roald Dahl and the Hilariously Bad Grades
A newly released Roald Dahl collection, The Missing Golden Ticket and Other Splendiferous Secrets, includes a secret ending to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and excerpts from the author’s hilariously bad report cards. Wrote one teacher about Dahl in 1931: “A persistent muddler. Vocabulary negligible, sentences malconstructed. He reminds me of a camel.” (via Galley Cat)
Atwood Re-tells Shakespeare
Margaret Atwood has signed on to retell Shakespeare’s The Tempest in a new book called Hag-Seed. Check out the cover at The Bookseller. Pair with our interview with Atwood following the release of The Heart Goes Last.
A Prodigal Daughter
“We lived in the Midlands, and when I moved to Dublin for university Frank liked to call me up and talk to me about my late mother, whom he informed me was ‘no saint’.” Sally Rooney’s short story from the New Irish Writing issue of Granta is now available on the Literary Hub website.
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Just Like in the Movies
Belle and Sebastian’s Stevie Jackson, better known (at least to this writer) as the Sultan of Twee, sits down with Rick Moody as part of the Swinging Modern Sounds feature over at The Rumpus. Among other things, Jackson says that he thinks the John Lennon album Sometime in New York City is a “total masterpiece” and says that at one point in his life he could recite the book Trainspotting.
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Looking forward to reading about this. Someone– think it is Brenda Maddox– has a bio of Yeats focused on his love of the supernatural. what really stuck with me from that book, however, was that Yeats struggled with learning to read. I believe he was 7 or 8 before he did. His father– the painter Jack B. Yeats–used to throw books at William Butler’s head, which just about broke my heart. And his mother was very remote, but took pleasure in telling them fairy tales of west of Ireland.
There is a new book that is available on Amazon called “W.B. Yeats and the Secret Masters of the world.” Its a fictional account of his involvement with the occult and the Golden Dawn. I thought it was a fantastic read and for anyone interested in Yeats or the Golden Dawn I highly recommend it. The author is Peter Jennings and it only came out recently as far as I know. Although it is fictional and fairly satirical it seems clear that the writer has done his research and his presentation of Yeats as a character has been accomplished in a thoughtful manner.
Link for anyone interested:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yeats-Secret-Masters-World-ebook/dp/B00APLNSMG/ref=zg_bs_426323031_46