To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA Program, the school’s literary magazine – Route Nine – gathered work from over 80 alumni to create a special Alumni Omnibus issue. The collection just went online recently, and it’s tremendous.
Route Nine’s Alumni Omnibus: 50 Years in the Making
The Queens of Repulsive Realism
A new wave of "Repulsive Realism" features characters who manufacture and revel in their own mire and rebel against packaged femininity.
●
●
●
“I decided to stage an event: Robot Wars.”
Recommended Reading: Got a ton of spare time and a nostalgic interest in killer, mechanized war machines? Cool. Me too. Here’s an oral history of Battlebots.
Translated Books Giveaway
Those who donate to The Center for the Art of Translation get a chance to receive books signed by a pair of the top translators working today, Natasha Wimmer and Breon Mitchell.
Doodling Lit
We all doodle, but Meg Wolitzer gets inspired by it. When she was writing The Interestings, she frequently drew her way into her characters. “I sometimes drew crude, Harvey- and Archie-inspired images of my characters, in keeping with the spirit of Ethan Figman and Figland,” she wrote in The New Yorker.
●
●
On Better Halves (or Twentieths)
Wondering what it’s like to have twenty different personalities? Kim Noble can tell you — she’s published a memoir on the topic.
●
●