“I do remember thinking ‘You can’t get involved in the particle physics of fantasy.’ You can take it down to a certain level but if you get too involved in the particle physics then it’s not [useful] to continue. So I guess we have a branch of science that even its practitioners do not understand, that they may as well call magic.” Talking with David Mitchell.
Weird Science
William Kelley, a Lost Literary Giant
“I didn’t know who William Kelley was when I found that book but, like millions of Americans, I knew a term he is credited with first committing to print. ‘If You’re Woke, You Dig It’ read the headline of a 1962 Op-Ed that Kelley published in the New York Times, in which he pointed out that much of what passed for “beatnik” slang (“dig,” “chick,” “cool”) originated with African-Americans.” Are you familiar with William Kelley? Let Kathryn Schulz be your guide on this historical literary adventure as she discovers an immensely influential writer whom most of us have never heard mentioned.
Virtual Poetry Seminars
The International Writing Program at the University of Iowa is offering two seven-week online seminars free of charge this summer: Advanced Poetry and Poetry Masterclass. The seminars are intended for emerging and published poets, respectively, and they will be taught by Micah Bateman and Nick Twemlow. Anybody with an internet connection is allowed to apply, and applications are due May 8th.
The British Library Goes Digital
The British Library is launching a new iPad app that will eventually feature over 60,000 19th century books.
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The Morning News Tournament of Books
Emma Straub declares Julian Barnes‘s Sense of an Ending fitter than Donald Ray Pollock‘s The Devil All the Time in the opening round of The Morning News Tournament of Books.
The Fleshy School
It looks like it’s a poetry kind of morning. Spring is on its way, and what better way to celebrate than with Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “The Sun’s Shame,” a poem of death and desire … and also sunshine: “All soulless now, yet merry with the Spring!”
Writing Is a Dangerous Pursuit
“We might not win. And yet we have to commit ourselves to the struggle, because there’s nothing else besides struggle.” Toni Morrison talks about literature and activism with Ta-Nehisi Coates and Sonia Sanchez.
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