"Reading is the creative center of a writer's life." — Stephen King
May 15, 2025
When asked to recommend a classic Irish memoir, a bookseller in Dublin went straight to this book. As it turns out, she wasn’t alone in saying that reading this book is one of “life’s greatest pleasures.” This … Read More
April 27, 2025
How do you write a memoir about a family that has more than its share of abandonment and fractured relationships? Joanne Nelson’s book is a collection of fragments. Her short pieces show … Read More
April 21, 2025
This book is based on the novelist Ann Patchett’s address at a graduation ceremony. She is the perfect speaker for students who panic at the thought of leaving campus and friends and having to walk the … Read More
April 11, 2025
What should a moderately successful novelist, who didn’t engage readers during the social revolutions of the late 1960s and early 1970s, do to stage a come back? Explore trends? Update her plots? Become provocative? Barbara … Read More
March 31, 2025
Imagine a story about a baker who experiments with a recipe for biscotti that contains pistachios and orange zest. The baker is pleased with the results. The end. Wait, what? How can a story have … Read More
March 21, 2025
The cover photo is a close-up of a level, which is sometimes called a spirit level. Ah, you might say, this poetry collection must be about finding balance. And since the author won the … Read More
March 14, 2025
Here’s what I like about George Saunders: even though he is an award-winning author and a creative writing professor – some go so far as to call him “a secular … Read More
February 28, 2025
As a young bride, what book did Gail Baines receive from her mother-in-law? If you are a fan of Anne Tyler novels, you might guess something quirky and blunt, and you would be right: … Read More
February 13, 2025
There are so many ways Percival Everett could have taken his retelling of Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s perspective. He could have focused on revenge, or the relationship between Huck and Jim, or finding justice. Instead, he focuses … Read More
February 7, 2025
I’m a skeptic – especially when it comes to advice for teachers at colleges and universities. I’ve seen scores of “best practices” rise and fall since I taught my first writing courses in the 1980s. There have been some exceptions, of course, where the authors have convinced … Read More
January 29, 2025
What makes a travelogue interesting? For starters, a promising premise – such as “a frog in the fjord” – helps. But for a book to become a bestseller, and to be recommended by … Read More
January 22, 2025
The story “The Third and Final Continent” is about a man who moved from India to the United States. The story focuses on his early days in this country thirty years ago. However, in the … Read More
December 30, 2024
Let’s think about the title of the novel Intermezzo. If you enjoy words with many meanings – this one can refer to a musical composition, a file system for Linux, a prescription medication, a breed of horses, … Read More
December 13, 2024
When the great poet Nikki Giovanni died earlier this week, many tributes described how this literary legend never took her foot off the gas: she wrote more than 30 books, with one more coming out … Read More
December 4, 2024
In 1999, the New York Times ran an article about “probably the most popular poet in America” – Billy Collins – and his unprecedented six-figure publishing contract for three books. The backlash … Read More