Throwback Thursday: White Noise by Don DeLillo
When Don DeLillo’s White Noise was first published in 1984, the United States was at the peak of the Cold War, suffering from a disease of discontent and anxiety similar to our post-election malaise.
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ARRIVAL and the False Dichotomy of Free Will vs Determinism
ARRIVAL has been hailed for carving a space for the “literary science fiction movie,” and rightly so. Director Denis Villeneuve achieved the nearly impossible feat of making a compelling, relatively crowd-pleasing movie about linguistics, complete with a new alien language composed of 100 logograms, while also weaving in themes of international cooperation, humanism, and empathy.
Trump’s Words Helped Him Win—And That’s Troubling
The effects of this year’s presidential election, exhausting and exhaustive as it was, will reverberate locally, nationally and globally for decades. This is true of all presidential elections, but the contrast between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton could not have been more pronounced.
We Are Hungry, Michele Morano, for More
You have probably come across Michele Morano’s essay collection, Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain, at nonfiction conferences with presenters hailing it as an exemplary form of nonfiction. One of its essays, “The Queimada,” has been published in many anthologies. This contemporary classic illustrates the heights of the travel memoir genre.
Baltimore School Students Write in Protest and Celebration
Writers in Baltimore Schools, the creative writing organization I run for Baltimore youth, has developed a protocol for mobilizing safe spaces for writing after trauma. We were unfortunately ready when Donald Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States. On Thursday, fifteen of us gathered to write in protest.
A Transformative Act: Words Become Music—An Interview with Composer Eric Moe
Eric Moe is a pianist with a penchant for eclectic harmonies, provocative rhythms, melody lines that curl and cling to the listener’s ear. He’s also developed, over the course of a rich career, a kind of perfect pitch for incorporating text to music.
Round-Up: The National Book Awards, Bob Dylan to Miss Nobel Ceremony, and Zadie Smith’s SWING TIME
From the National Book Award winners to Zadie Smith’s newest novel, here are last week’s biggest literary headlines: The 67th annual National Book Awards ceremony took place November 16. The winners included Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad for fiction, Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America for nonfiction,…
The Resistance Will Also Be Literary
November has been a heavy month. The results of the U.S. elections came in; Leonard Cohen passed away; and on Sunday 13th, France commemorated the 1-year anniversary of the Paris attacks.
From Manic to Magical: Reflections on Bruce Chatwin
It took me less than five minutes via Google Maps to find where English travel writer Bruce Chatwin had lived during his time Edinburgh.