"Reading is the creative center of a writer's life." — Stephen King
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 on James’s strengths … Read More
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 me to reconsider … Read More
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 a premier travel … Read More
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 final pages of … Read More
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, or a chess … Read More
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 next year. I … Read More
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 at that time … Read More
What is it like to be a poet? If you have the ideal education, can you make a career of it? This novel shows us four people who attempt to do so. We meet … Read More
Like Pride and Prejudice, this book opens with a lie. It says, “This is the story of Bob Burgess.” The truth is that it’s the story of Bob, Lucy, Olive, Margaret, William, Jim, and Pam and the stories … Read More
There are two groups of readers who will love this book. Descendants of Norwegian immigrants (like me) who have grown up hearing about wanting to go back to Norway someday will recognize many of the … Read More
As a writer, few things give me more pleasure than discovering an excellent writer. Kate Roberts wrote her novels, short stories, and autobiography in Welsh, which meant that most of the English-speaking world didn’t know of … Read More
This quote is from the poem “Fern Hill,” written by Dylan Thomas, one of the greatest Welsh poets of all time. My Welsh Airbnb host included it in his description of the changeable weather, which is one indication of … Read More
This sentence comes at the end of the first paragraph. We see that while everything seems okay, it’s not. Something has ended, and the protagonist is upset. Keegan is reluctant to spell it out for us. … Read More
The title of this novel comes from a gut-wrenching scene in Macbeth, where the central character mourns his wife’s death and wants his now-meaningless existence to come to an end. (And it does. Violently.) Is … Read More
A review of “Poems from the Winter House” in 100 words by Catherine Stover
Daniel Smith’s poetry readings draw people who have never been to a poetry reading before. They come to hear him describe farming and his decision to finally sell his ancestral home and discontinue the way of … Read More