Recommended Reading: Tim Ellison writes for Ploughshares on Boston’s founding literary figures. Pair with Adam Kelly’s Millions essay on Boston’s geography in Infinite Jest.
Boston Writers
Perfect Punctuation
An American Writer
“And now An American Marriage, with its ruminations on masculinity, married life, and what constitutes marital debt, manages the trick of arriving at the right time while also feeling utterly untethered to just one era.” BuzzFeed News profiled writer Tayari Jones about her life, oeuvre, and fourth novel, An American Marriage. Pair with: Jones’s 2017 Year in Reading entry.
Revisiting Vanessa Veselka
Revisiting Vanessa Veselka’s Zazen and what constitutes as an acceptable author bio.
Emily Pullen on e-readers
Bookseller and blogger Emily Pullen discusses the e-reading experience in this morning’s Shelf Awareness: “I have noticed that when I read on the device, my attention span is somewhat short. I rarely read for more than an hour–usually about 20 minutes. It’s not because it is uncomfortable for my eyes or my hands. Instead I just don’t get as immersed.”
Background Noise
We hear a lot about the books writers read while drafting their own novels and stories. But we don’t hear as much about the music, TV shows and other forms of art that kept them going throughout the process. At Page-Turner, Amy Bloom catalogues the influences on her latest novel.