For everyone who believes that “being out and reading is better than staying home and planning to read,” The New Yorker‘s Andrea Denhoed may have found just the thing: silent reading parties.
Silence, Please
Or, Like Something Out of Kafka
In their latest Trend Watch, Merriam-Webster announced they’ve been seeing more searches for “Kafkaesque,” a spike they attribute to British publishers writing about Booker winner Han Kang. Since the word is so overused, it’s worthwhile to ask: just what does it actually mean now, anyway? Allison Flood tries to pin it down at The Guardian.
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This is my impersonation of a person writing a Curiosity
Comedian Tig Notaro, who recently announced she has breast cancer, has sold her memoir, and fans can look for it on shelves in 2015. Until then, you’ll have to make do with her hysterical stand-up routines.
This Writing Life
“I thought there were would be more in this writing life, an easier path to walk. I write those words and know they are the unwise thoughts of my younger self and that I am still too stubborn to give up on my dreams. When Annie Dillard invited me outside for that smoke, she knew very well what it would mean to a young writer like me. She intuited my ambitions and it was her way of encouraging me.” This essay is ostensibly about smoking cigarettes and playing catch with Annie Dillard, but it’s also about the incredibly important role that an established writer can play in helping a struggling up-and-comer.
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What troubles me are the silences in my own memory.
In remembrance of Adrienne Rich, who died just this past March, Vida has published 21 love poems.
Turkish … Delight?
C.S. Lewis’s greatest fiction of all time was convincing American children that turkish delight was going to taste good. Here are a couple pieces on food and writing to sate your unjustly titillated appetite.
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Seeing Red
Wouldn’t it be nice if your brain just went ahead and created that pesky simile for you? For individuals suffering with synesthesia (a neurological disorder in which one sense is “cross-wired” with another, such as seeing the color red or hearing a sour taste) the brain does just that. Here’s a piece from Electric Literature that takes a look at synesthesia, substances, and seeing the world askew.
Literary Bald Britney Spears
Following Sarah Hepola’s devastating New York Times Magazine profile of Cat Marnell with empathy and queer theory, Jane Hu’s piece on what it means to read Marnell, to follow her and crave her work even as her work destroys her, merits reading and rereading.