For centuries, inquiring theologians have wondered about the authorship of The Bible. Now a writer at the LARB, William L. Davis, raises a related question: who really wrote The Book of Mormon?
Who Wrote the Golden Plates?
Writing-Dude-in-Nature Territory
“In Pond, Claire-Louise Bennett stomps all over writing-dude-in-nature territory with her poetic unraveling of Thoreau’s wilderness jaunt.” A. N. Devers on Bennett’s celebrated new collection.
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Struck by Lightning
“Once certain hurdles are cleared (a bit of talent, years of work), being a writer is like flying a kite in a storm in a field full of people flying kites in a storm.” Garth Greenwell on writing his first novel, the importance of failure, and giving oneself privacy to make mistakes. Pair with Meredith Turits’s Millions piece, featuring six writers looking back on their first novels.
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Emily Dickinson’s iPhone
Emily Dickinson would be a really annoying texter. At The Toast, Mallory Ortberg imagines what texts you would receive if Emily had your phone number.
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Brad Pitt for Mayor of New Orleans
Brad Pitt for Mayor of New Orleans? Well, why not? Maybe he’s earned a shot at it.
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If Shakespeare Was a Programmer
“While it’s easy to dismiss coding as rote exercise—a matter of following rules—it’s worth remembering that natural language is subject to rules of its own: grammar, syntax, spelling. The best writers test these rules, bend them, or break them outright, and in doing so they keep the language alive…. With that in mind, I wanted to apply the quirks and transgressions of the great authors to JavaScript, to see where that pushed the language.” Angus Croll imagines Shakespeare as a programmer in a piece for Quartz and in his book, If Hemingway Wrote JavaScript.
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Milord, Milady
“Is this the right time to say ‘Zounds, milady’?” A short history of Renaissance Faires.
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James Franco + n+1
It’s time for another literary James Franco sighting. This time he’s popping up in the table of contents for the next issue of n+1.
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