“Many black parents tell black children to strive; to seize opportunities that will enable upward mobility. However, they also give their children a poison capable of eroding black children’s innocence. They tell them to be twice as good; that there is no room for failure or mistakes.” Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun, writes about how black children are denied the privilege of innocence.
The Privilege of Innocence
Dun-Dun
Planning on writing a prison scene? Worried your characters might sound a bit unrealistic? Then see if you can get your hands on the Bonne Terre dictionary. Written by inmates at a prison in Louisiana, the dictionary includes such idiosyncratic terms as “boat,” meaning a plastic bed, and “pumpkin,” meaning a new inmate.
Whither Chester A. Arthur?
It’s rare that Warren G. Harding gets much attention these days, which is why it’s all the more interesting that Sadie Stein’s father, when she was growing up, grew fascinated with the single-term president. At the Paris Review Daily, she recounts her family’s visit to Harding’s home.
New Trailer for T.C. Boyle
In 1998, T.C. Boyle released his first massive collection of short stories, titled, appropriately enough, Stories. Clocking in at 700+ pages, the book illustrated the zany profligacy of one our premier short fiction writers. Now Boyle has released a new collection — titled (of course) Stories II — and with it comes a new trailer.
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Guinea Pig, Actual Pig
Recommended Reading: Maria Russo’s Times review of the new Dr. Seuss book. (If you haven’t yet, go check out Michiko Kakutani’s companion review-in-verse.
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Remembering Ray Bradbury
A moving tribute to Ray Bradbury on The Paris Review Daily from his one time fact checker Stephen Andrew Hiltner: “Ray Bradbury, who never went to college and was entirely library educated, had what so many of the sophisticated, MFA-carrying writers today lack: passion, vitality, emotional awareness.” Also: Wired has collected a bunch of reminiscences from science fiction writers, including Ursula K. Le Guin.
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The Silent History
The Silent History is being billed as a “new kind of novel.” Readers download a free app for their iOS devices and, over a period of six months, the app will deliver brief, serialized installments of an “exploratory novel.” Certain features of the story depend on your geographic location, and readers also have the opportunity to contribute their own features. For a full primer, as well as interview with Eli Horowitz, one of the “key figures” behind the idea, head over to VQR’s website.