Nearly everyone has an opinion about MFA programs, and Flavorwire has 27 pulled from writers and teachers, including our own Edan Lepucki whose full piece on “The MFA Debate” can be found here.
MFA Opinions
Building Covers
Year in Reading alumnus Chris Ware drew the cover of this week’s New Yorker. (If you liked his latest, Building Stories, you might like reading our review.)
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Min Jin Lee Finds Her Voice
Min Jin Lee recounts how she found her voice, going from a young student struggling with the English language to a published author promoting her own work.
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Mark Baumer Killed on Cross-Country Protest Walk
This week poet Mark Baumer was struck and killed by an SUV while walking barefoot across the country. Baumer, 33, began his cross-country walk to raise awareness about climate change, and was documenting the journey on his blog (as well as Instagram and YouTube). Florida, where he was killed, was recently ranked “the most dangerous place for pedestrians” in the United States.
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Must Love Books
The New York Times has a piece about niche dating websites that includes Alikewise, a matchmaking site for bibliophiles. Users can search for people based on age, sex, location, and, for instance, whether or not they like Bukowski.
You Are What You Read
Two new studies reaffirm what good readers (and Quixote and Pechorin) have long known—when you identify with a fictional characters, you are likely to subconsciously emulate them.
So Many Pompadours
In the game of girlhood classics written during the nineteenth century, the correct answer to Little Women versus Anne of Green Gables is clearly Betsy-Tacy.