November 6, 2018
On Titles
It’s always amusing to read about the original titles of famous novels. A few years ago an infographic from Jonkers Rare Books made the rounds on the Internet and revealed […]
July 18, 2018
In Defense of Long Descriptions
When I was young (middle school) my favorite novels were The Lord of the Rings, though my friends always complained that they were too long and boring, with too much […]
July 10, 2018
On a Novel’s First Line
Perhaps it’s the economic realities of trying to publish literary fiction in an age of late capitalism, or perhaps it’s simply our culture’s diminishing attention span, but the first line […]
June 8, 2018
The Quest for the Enchanted Writing Tip
Many writers spend their whole careers chasing that enchanted writing tip that will make them extraordinary, and there’s certainly no shortage of craft advice. Some authors (I’m looking at you, […]
October 29, 2013
The Twenty-Year Rule
Just as there is a sharp division between a 19th century Yeats (the “Celtic Twilight” material) and a deliberately developed, 20th century Yeats (the “Byzantine” Yeats of the more […]
October 11, 2013
Skyscrapers of Light
In 1938, Westinghouse buried a time capsule in a section of Queens described as a “valley of ashes” in The Great Gatsby. The time capsule was supposed to contain a […]