December 26, 2018
Teaching About Designer Babies/Designing Humans (and the story of American Eugenics)
When I was asking around about teaching methods or topics that excited students, I was particularly intrigued to hear about Dr. Phyllis van Slyck’s course, “Designer Babies/Designing Humans (and the story of […]
December 19, 2018
On Character Motivation: The Personal vs The Political
Years ago, when I was still interested in being a screenwriter as well as a novelist (the Dark Ages of my literary life), I heard a screenwriting teacher say during […]
December 18, 2018
What Special Ed Has to Teach Ed: Speaking With the Woman Who Taught Me To Read When No One Else Could
My own struggle with learning disabilities left me with very strong feelings on education. With the help of one very brilliant and patient woman, Veronica Russo, I was given the […]
December 17, 2018
“Transformed this way into your own atlas of being”: A Conversation with Gillian Cummings
Gillian Cummings is the author of The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter, selected by John Yau as the winner of the 2018 Colorado Prize for Poetry (The Center for Literary Publishing […]
December 13, 2018
On Eckes, Harvey and Myles
It sounds like a middling 70’s folk rock act, right? Maybe in some alternate universe it is a middling 70’s folk rock act, but in my own universe it’s been […]
December 12, 2018
In Defense of Long Sentences
When it comes to prose style in contemporary literature, no two works have had a greater influence than George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” and Strunk and […]
December 11, 2018
“We transform among chaos”: A Conversation with Hala Alyan
Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American writer and clinical psychologist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Guernica and elsewhere. Her poetry collections have won the Arab American Book Award and […]
December 10, 2018
Poetry for People Who Hate Poetry – December
What makes poetry poetry? Ask that question of a dozen poets, scholars, or readers and you’ll get as many different answers, maybe more. Some won’t be much help: “Poetry is […]
December 6, 2018
Asking College and High School Students How They Want to be Taught
After teaching college for ten years, some days I feel like a wrinkled old pro, but many days I still find the practice of conveying information to young people to […]
December 5, 2018
An Accidental Memoirist: The Education of a Young Poet by David Biespiel
Sze-Lorrain: In the first chapter of your latest book of prose, The Education of a Young Poet, you write: Perhaps the hardest thing about my education as a poet is […]
December 5, 2018
To Hell with You
I know not to get my hopes up about a short story submission while it’s still under consideration. When it comes to literary journal submissions, the competition is intense, and […]
December 3, 2018
Kenyon Review’s Holiday Reading Recommendations
Ah, the holidays, season of lists. At KR, we celebrate by asking our editors and staff to enthuse about books—new and old, in any and every genre—that have captured their […]