Here are a couple Halloween-related essays from the good people at The Literary Hub: This fascinating literary history of witches by Jess Bergman, and this piece by Tobias Carroll on non-fiction writers crossing the supernatural line between fantasy and reality.
Scaring Men
Springfield, Springfield, It’s a Hell of a Town!
In a big reveal to devout fans like me, The Simpsons creator Matt Groening finally copped to the fictional Springfield’s real-life inspiration: Springfield, Oregon. Of course this matter has been widely pondered before, and was perhaps even answered by Paul Nelson and his cohorts at SNPP.com.
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Fish Cop
Nobody likes to be critiqued. Lucas Gardener at The New Yorker would really like to assure all of his concerned Creative Writing workshop classmates that his most recent submission, “Creative Writing Beatdown,” is entirely fictional and has no basis in reality. Really.
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Marable’s Works Donated
The late Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Dr. Manning Marable “informed his family that one of his passing wishes was to make his work available to incarcerated individuals.” His collection of authored works has recently been donated by his family to Otisville Correctional Facility.
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NoViolet Bulawayo on Sitting With Her Personal Ghosts
NoViolet Bulawayo discusses her new novel, Glory, a post-colonial fable about power, history, and the circular nature of both.
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My Favorite Movies, Cheap
This just in: Three of my all-time favorite movies are on sale on Amazon for $6.99: Shaun of the Dead, Dazed and Confused, and The Jerk. There’s a bunch of other DVDs on sale too.