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
Carmen Maria Machado on the Consequences of Banning Books
Those who seek to ban my book are trying to exploit fear—about the realities that books like mine expose, fear about desire and sex and love—and distort it into something ugly, in an attempt to wish away queer experiences.
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The Afterlife of David Foster Wallace
“Wallace’s status has rapidly evolved from marginal writer, noted for long, experimental work, to indispensable reference point for people writing about almost anything—from college football to WikiLeaks.” On the powerful afterlife of David Foster Wallace.
Nicole Dennis-Benn Moves Forward
Nicole Dennis-Benn discusses her latest book, Patsy, a novel that explores issues of motherhood, the working class, sexual identity, and immigration.
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British Writers On Lady Chatterley’s Lover
At the Telegraph, Roya Nikkhah looks back at the unpublished letters of some of Britain’s greatest writers that reveal what they really thought of the controversial Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Whitman Passes Away
George Whitman, owner of the storied Parisian English-language bookstore Shakespeare & Company, died this week at the age of 98.
“The only option is to participate.”
The Missouri Review interview with Jessa Crispin, founder of Bookslut. If you’ve yet to stumble upon the decade old literary blog, you might want to start with this recent post from Kevin Frazier on Edith Wharton and Julian Barnes. Or this treat from the archives about Monica McFawn Robinson trying to construct an undergraduate course syllabus on love.
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Clashing Titans, old and new fashioned
Virginia Heffernan weighs in on the whole Wikipedia v. Philip Roth thing, brilliantly pitting “Anglo-American Great Man media empires” against “Polyglot Open-Source new media”.
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Queer Literature’s Role in the Revolution
David Canfield hosted a virtual discussion on the future of queer literature with Naoise Dolan, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Akwaeke Emezi, and Garth Greenwell.
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