The Empathy Exams, a new collection of essays by Leslie Jamison, gets its title from a piece about medical acting that was published in The Believer. On the Harper’s blog, you can read an interview with Jamison, who calls her collection “a refusal to choose between these approaches — criticism, confession, journalism.” (Michelle Huneven interviewed Jamison for The Millions a couple of years ago.)
Playing the Victim
“The Soul of the Censor”
Recommended reading: Robert Darnton writes for The New York Review of Books blog about the history and politics of censorship.
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A Cartoon Quixote
Well, Cervantes‘s body was just found, and there are some varying opinions about whether or not that’s a great thing for Spain and Spanish literature. What is almost definitely not a great thing for either: the pornographic Spanish Don Quixote cartoon from the seventies.
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Transitions
In the latest issue of The Walrus, Casey Plett reads a number of books involving transgender people, critiquing several aspects of their depictions. Along with the essay, she provides a list of transgender novels everyone should read, including Nevada by Imogen Binnie and Wanting in Arabic by Trish Salah.
Wild Inspiration
Here’s a potential remedy for your writer’s block or attention deficit issues: take a hike in the woods. (Maybe even take a hike while reading a book.)
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Why Barry Writes
In the pages of Oxford American, the late Barry Hannah confesses to writing “out of a greed for lives and language.”
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Needs a Good Family
Seventy-two copies of One Story are looking for loving homes. Reader, will you be a dear and adopt a hungry short story?