Eve Ewing recently released her debut poetry collection, Electric Arches, and we dubbed it one of our must-read poetry books last month. Year in Reading alum (and another Millions favorite) Kiese Laymon called her for a Guernica magazine interview and the result is a wonderful discussion on shea butter, Jordans, writing with young people as her primary audience and Assata Shakur as a literary inspiration.
Two Must Read Poets Converse
Tarantino on Writing
Say what you want about Quentin Tarantino; the man thinks like a writer. You can hear him doing so out loud on the current episode of KCRW's The Treatment, with Elvis Mitchell.
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Ping-ping-ping
Back in July, Evan Allgood interviewed Alina Simone for The Millions. The writer and indie rocker talked about her new book and the phenomenon of “gilded turds” in the art world. Now, at Full-Stop, Jordan Kisner conducts his own interview with Simone, who tells him that “we’re in this age where every three seconds you’re getting pinged by some weird ‘ask’ that is almost like an invitation to a new life.”
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Neomysterativity
The term “academic writing” is controversial, not least because it implies that academics have an odd and persnickety way of writing. In a blog post for The New Yorker, Joshua Rothman examines the genre, looking back on his time in grad school to argue that academic writing is a “fraught and mysterious thing.”
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Not Sure
Are people losing interest in fiction that “offers more questions than answers?” In her book Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel, Jane Smiley suggested that modern readers have little taste for uncertainty. At The Rumpus, Rob Roberge asks how much this contributes to popular disinterest in literature.
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