September 16, 2019
What Makes a Character Human?
It’s been almost twenty years ago now since James Wood penned (metaphorically speaking, of course, since I’m sure he used a computer) his famous critique of a genre of literary […]
July 26, 2019
On the Importance of the Authorial Voice
In his book The Art of Perspective, part of Graywolf Press’s series of craft books on writing (which I’ve written about a few times before on this blog), Christopher Castellani […]
April 13, 2018
Against Relatability
In a recent article in The Baffler, Soraya Roberts argues that the new genre of “Instapoetry,” most famously practiced by Rupi Kaur, is nothing more than a narcissistic feedback loop, […]
May 7, 2015
How the West Inverted its Literary Values
In a true missing-the-forest-for-the-trees phenomenon, modern literary criticism has left unremarked, to my knowledge at least, the totally anomalous body of “great literature” that has come out of Europe and […]
July 5, 2012
Mix Tape: “Be relentless. All over the world, people are working harder than you.”
Thanks to Sarah Manguso, for this and other advice to young writers, including this bit on socializing: “Don’t go to events; go to the receptions after the events. If possible, […]
March 29, 2012
Mix Tape: “Whatever happens, this is.”
Here’s to Adrienne Rich, who said: “I am uncomfortable with talking of poetry as a priestly profession, because I have little use for organized religions and priestly hierarchies. They have […]
January 28, 2012
Short Takes: The Eleven (Self-Addressed) Commandments
“When you can’t create you can work.” “Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.” Some words of wisdom in the writing commandments of Henry Miller. Nabokov: “I’ve […]
January 17, 2012
Short Takes: Poetic Violence
Why is it that, 600 years later, Joan of Arc still fascinates us? And by “us” I mean, of course, not just you and me, reader, but “Shakespeare, Voltaire, Twain, […]