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6 Reasons We Should Celebrate Hans Christian Andersen — 214 Years After His Birth
April 2nd, 2019
For a man who wrote some of the most lasting stories in history, Hans Christian Andersen is never venerated like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, or Ernest Hemingway. Indeed, his fairy tales precede him and Andersen himself is much shrouded in mystery.
Read Column →A List of Books I Recommended to Autumn Christian for "Girl Like a Bomb"
April 1st, 2019
I like to be a hands-on editor. Playing in bands, when I share songs with other musicians, I want them to understand where I'm coming from and what influences me. I tell them to check out certain bands to inspire them and help them build off what I'm trying to.
Read Column →April Showers Bring May Manuscripts
April 1st, 2019
The shower is one of humanity’s greatest inventions. Okay, it’s not really an invention. We just ripped off nature’s idea—rain—but the shower is generally warmer, and it’s easier (legally) to be naked in the shower than it is to stand at the end of the driveway naked while it rains. Take my word on this one. The shower is pretty good for cleaning the body, but it’s got a magical, second function. It’s the place where a lot of us get good ideas.
Read Column →Improve Your Stories By Eliminating Agendas
March 29th, 2019
Recently, a student of mine handed in a story that was far and away better than anything he’d written since joining the MFA Program here at Arcadia University. In itself, this is not uncommon. Students have writing epiphanies all the time, and I’m always happy to see them. When I asked this student what he’d done differently for this story, he told me something I’ve never heard before from a pupil: he said this was the first story that he didn’t approach with an agenda.
Read Column →The Literary Influences Behind Jordan Peele's "Us"
March 28th, 2019
SPOILERS ABOUND BELOW
Read Column →The World of Yuri Herrera
March 28th, 2019
"Yuri Herrera must be a thousand years old. He must have traveled to hell, and heaven, and back again. He must have once been a girl, an animal, a rock, a boy, and a woman. Nothing else explains the vastness of his understanding."
Read Column →Library Love: Seed Libraries
March 27th, 2019
Header via Librarians, always looking to push the envelope. Makerspaces, Go clubs, Drag Queen Story Hour, and now... seed libraries. What newfangled thing will they come up with next? If you were like me last season and didn't think about putting in food plants until May when it was already freaking hot, the time to get smart is now!
Read Column →Amy Hempel, 'Sing To It,' and The Death Of Minimalism
March 26th, 2019
Amy Hempel has a new book out. This news raises one of two reactions from people. The one I’m looking for is eyes open wide. Breath held.The kind of physical reaction that comes about when the internal feeling is that we’re lucky to be alive now, in this moment, when there’s another Amy Hempel book. The reaction I get, always, is non-physical. It’s summed up in a single word: Who?
Read Column →Help, There Are Feelings In My Sex: The Origins of Girl Like A Bomb
March 22nd, 2019
Sex always seems to bring out the worst in people. The protagonist in Girl Like a Bomb, Beverly Sykes, loses her virginity at the age of fifteen. I was much older. At the age of 21, I was an awkward, ugly little thing with mousy brown hair who wore almost nothing but her boyfriend's t-shirts over stretched out bras and skinny jeans over scuffed plaid sneakers. I avoided eye-contact and kept my head down in books and did my best disappearing act.
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