Renowned children’s author Lois Lowry talks to The Days of Yore about writing as a mother, living in Japan as a child, and early receptions to Number the Stars and The Giver.
Early Years
The Materialist
Object narrative (n): a story told through meditations on various physical objects. Examples include Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes; Neil MacGregor's A History of the World in 100 Objects; and Paula Byrne's The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things.
“Good evening.”
While you wait around for Hitchcock to hit theaters, you’ve got plenty of time to check out this online record of thirteen storyboards from the English director’s classic films.
Recommended Writers: Caribbean Edition
Ebony has a brief list of “Six Caribbean Writers to Discover This Summer,” and it’s a nice complement to Fortnightly Review’s recent double-feature on Dominican poets Homero Pumarol and Frank Báez. I also recommend checking out Generación Año Cero, an online collection of sixteen short stories from a “movement of [Cuban] writers who began publishing in 2000.”
Taylor Branch and the NCAA
The New York Times gives Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch a well-deserved profile. I've mentioned before that his take down of the NCAA's corruption is astounding, but now's a good time to mention that his e-book, The Cartel: Inside the Rise and Imminent Fall of the NCAA, is even better. Branch also appeared on Wednesday night's "Colbert Report" to discuss the book.
Allen Ginsberg, Beat Historian
"It’s not often one gets the opportunity to take a course on a major literary movement taught by a founding member of that movement," but Allen Ginsberg's lectures on "the literary history of the Beats" are now available online via Open Culture.
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Keeping it Fresh
How does a writer keep their work fresh? What's the goal of a successful artist? What is it like to adapt someone else's writing for the screen? The Atlantic interviews Nick Hornby about his latest book, Funny Girl, and these are some of the questions that come up. Pair with this Millions review of Hornby's A Long Way Down.
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