Can’t get enough of Orange is the New Black? Neither could The Missouri Review. Their new blog series, Literature on Lockdown, shares narratives from those who teach or write in prisons. This week’s post comes from Ace Boggess, a poet who spent five years in a West Virginia prison. “One thing about being a writer in prison is that you have not lost everything. You still have that driving need to speak whatever truth you know in whatever way you can. No one can take that away from you, not even the State.”
Jailhouse Rock
An Old Story
“We aim to foster a review culture where all genders can write about all topics and be met with equitable coverage.” Launched last year by a group of McGill University students, Just Review is an advocacy project that aims to help publications combat gender bias in the literary and publishing worlds. Would that this weren’t such an evergreen subject.
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Why?
Jesse Eisenberg’s nephew has a few questions for him in The New Yorker. Listen to Eisenberg read a piece of his new book, Bream Gives Me Hiccups, and face existential doubt in Shouts and Murmurs.
On the Greatness of Talking Rabbits
A decade before Matt Groening created The Simpsons, he debuted his first comic, Life in Hell, at a record store in Los Angeles. The strip kept running for thirty-five years, even after The Simpsons brought its creator international fame. He decided to end it earlier this year, and his fans (including Alison Bechdel) are paying tribute.
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Migraine Memories
Writer and illustrator Allyson Hoffman reflects on how chronic illness impacts daily life and memory.
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Which Wilder?
We’ve written about the newly published Laura Ingalls Wilder memoir several times, but a new review in the LA Times calls attention to one of the most interesting questions raised by the work: how much influence did Wilder’s daughter Rose Wilder Lane, an accomplished author in her own right, have on the final Little House books?
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The Future of the Book (Studies)
Goucher College announced the creation of a new interdisciplinary minor this week. “Book Studies” will “explore the past, present, and future of the book,” according to the school’s administration. Regarding the “future of the book,” might we recommend our built-in syllabus?
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Candlepin Bowling with Elizabeth McCracken
Elizabeth McCracken discusses her new novel, Bowlaway, with Ann Patchett in a new interview for Patchett's bookstore, Parnassus Books.
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