The moral conundrum that can be the white hip hop critic.
Music for Thought
Poetry and Science Fiction Recommendations
Teddy Roosevelt could read an entire book before breakfast. Kim Peek (Rain Man) could read two pages of text simultaneously. Perhaps by using some combination of both techniques, you’ve managed to make your way through our entire Great 2013 Book Preview. Or perhaps you’re just looking for some poetry and science fiction recommendations. Well, either way Mark Sanderson and China Miéville have you covered, respectively.
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Costume Drama
Callan Wink, the Wyoming writer who’s published two stories in The New Yorker since 2011, has a new story, “One More Last Stand,” in Granta's Spring issue. Among other things, it depicts the oddly frightening “heat of battle re-enactment.”
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Chabon and Waldman Go HBO
Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman are teaming with Darren Aronofsky on an HBO pilot, Hobgoblin.
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“What is your useful skill in a tangible situation?”
First there were cupcakes, then donuts, and now toast. At The Pacific Standard, John Gravois discovers the surprisingly emotional and personal reason for why toast is the latest artisan food trend.
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Writing Writing
When you want to distinguish fiction and poetry writing from academic work or journalism, you use a straightforward term: creative writing. But what if that term is not the one you should use? At Slate, an article on the subject by Cydney Alexis, originally published by Inside Higher Ed.
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The James Ellroy Phenomenon
"His books used to be ink on paper; now we have to squint through the cloud of the Ellroy Phenomenon." And the James Ellroy Phenomenon looks like it will only continue: the author has announced plans for a second L.A. Quartet, the first of which, Perfidia, comes out next week.
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The PEN World Voices Line-Up
PEN World Voices, the great annual festival of International Literature, unveils this year's lineup for the week of April 26, in New York and elsewhere. Highlights include Norman Rush, Patti Smith, László Krasznahorkai, Rodrigo Frésan, and Sherman Alexie's "Freedom to Write" lecture.
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