“Imagination for me has always been about the spaces in between, a sort of filler that completes a picture. If what we know is the jaggedness of the ocean floor, then imagination is the body of water that defines what is hidden and what is seen.” This essay on interstices and representing Hawai’i Creole English as a legitimate literary participant is excellent.
All Things Interwoven
Fear Factor
Colson Whitehead has some advice: write the book that “scares you shitless.” In a recent, wide-ranging interview with John Freeman, the Underground Railroad author talks about why he wrote his latest novel, along with his methods for sussing out good ideas. You could also read our review of The Underground Railroad.
Open Letters Reborn
Open Letters Monthly has relaunched with a smart-looking new site and three new blogs: Like Fire, stevereads, and the Walt Whitman-focused Whitman’s Blog.
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There Is No End
“In the years before my book came out, I was writing frantically. I remember a week when I was working late at my job, late enough that the buses had stopped running and I had to take a cab home, and I still wrote into the night, trying to finish an essay I had promised an editor. Now I see that I was trying to race against time. I had believed, however irrationally, that there would be a moment beyond which my voice would be taken away from me and I would no longer be able to write.” On writing and tenacity.
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Daniel Orozco’s Orientation
Daniel Orozco‘s Orientation collects many of his short stories in one attractive volume. Released last May, the collection features the classic story “Orientation” (Scribd) as well as newer ones such as “Shakers” (Scribd). It garnered enough hype to land him on the long list for this year’s Frank O’Connor Award.
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