Roxane Gay rounded up some of her favorite writers from “Outside of New York City.” (And she’s not talking about Brooklyn.)
New York: It Isn’t All That
Intersections and Turns
Recommended Reading: Noy Holland on writing fiction, a form rooted in deft timing, accidents, and revelations.
On Negative Book Reviews
“An appeal for the revival of the negative book review, then, is a remonstration against forced and foppish praise, where everything is good and so nothing at all is good.” In The Baffler, Rafia Zakaria writes in praise of negative book reviews and decries the “enfeebling of literary criticism.” From our archives: our own Emily St. John Mandel writes about bad book reviews.
Viet Thanh Nguyen and the Refugee’s Narrative
Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses the complexity behind refugee narratives and resisting the temptation of shallow representation.
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On The Making of The Blues Brothers
“‘We had a budget in the movie for cocaine for night shoots,’ [Dan] Aykroyd says.”
Trethewey’s Inaugural Reading
Natasha Trethewey will give her inaugural reading as the U.S. Poet Laureate tonight at the Library of Congress. The event is free and open to the public, and some of Trethewey’s work can be found here, here, and here.
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Down the Rabbit Hole
Recommended Reading: In her new memoir, Joyce Carol Oates praises Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass as “the singular book that changed my life – that made me yearn to be a writer.”
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