“The media of my childhood, mostly weekly television shows and overused VHS tapes, was like a good pet. Sure, it was a little costly to keep around, but it was lovable, and I could always shut it out in the yard for a while. Now, though, media is always with me, always trying to snag my attention and siphon away as much as possible to sell to advertisers. It feels like it’s evolved from a cute little pet into a frighteningly efficient parasite.”
A Parasite Called Media
How to Be A Writer
“Facing the daily avalanche of stories about outrageous corruption, writing about timely political issues can often feel pointless. It can be easy to lose faith in the creative process.” For LitHub, an essay by Tom McAllister on writing about politically-charged traumas with humanity and his new novel, How to Be Safe. Pair with: our 2010 interview with McAllister.
Dickinson Family Artifacts
You don’t need to visit Houghton Library in Cambridge, MA to check out Emily Dickinson’s family artifacts. You can catch a glimpse from the comfort of your own home.
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War and ???
Nowadays, we take it as a given that Tolstoy’s fame was guaranteed by his talent, but many of his contemporaries thought he’d never get a readership outside his native Russia. Why? His writing, as Rosamund Bartlett puts it in a comparison with Turgenev, was “unpolished, more uncompromising and altogether more Russian” than his peers’. If you generally prefer Dostoevsky, you’ll appreciate our survey of scholars on which author was greater. (h/t Arts and Letters Daily)
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Poe’s Back
After a period of uncertainty, Baltimore’s Edgar Allan Poe House is finally scheduled for reopening. To celebrate the victory, check out Édouard Manet’s illustrations for the French edition of “The Raven.”
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Women Writing About War
Recommended Reading: Kayla Williams‘s overview of books about war written by women veterans. “Works have been published by women veterans from all four branches of service, officers and enlisted, active duty and reservists, and from multiple ethnic backgrounds. Their diverse voices can significantly deepen our understanding of both who volunteers to serve in today’s military and what they experience.”
Meg Wolitzer Goes Hollywood (Again)
Meg Wolitzer details the odd experience of seeing her characters brought to life on the screen in The New York Times.
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