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painted heart with reds and black

A Writer’s Envy, Part IV: The Heart Is a Telephone

Guest post by Scott Nadelson Apparently, envy goes both ways. Just last week I had lunch with a sculptor friend who said he really wishes he could have been a writer, that he constantly struggles against the limitations of what his medium can communicate. He’s South African, and his work often deals with colonialism, oppression,…

four chairs at a counter in front of a black and white photograph of the Greensboro Four

The Greensboro Five

Guest post by Carol Keeley Among the iconic civil rights heroes in a recent Platon portfolio in The New Yorker were the Greensboro Four. The image of these young men at a whites-only counter in Woolworth’s ignited a movement and is part of our national conscience. But this shot includes a terrified young man who…

Olive Kitteridge cover in a repeated pattern

Elizabeth Strout, the Subconscious Writer

Several times during her question-and-answer session at Emerson College on April 15, Elizabeth Strout admitted to making things up. No one would begrudge a fiction writer of doing that–fabrication is part of her job. But Strout “just knew” when her latest book Olive Kitteridge was ready. “Which isn’t very interesting,” she added. Strout shared with…

outer space in black, blues, pinks

Ride, Sally, Ride

Guest post by Bridget Lowe As a child of the ’80s, I was keenly aware of that vast region of “somewhere else” called space, and the astronauts who donned special outfits to venture into it. This hyper-awareness was in part due to the famed Sally Ride, the youngest and first female astronaut to journey into…

impressionistic flames, red, yellow, orange fire

The Culture of Fire

Welcome to another fiction writer, Carol Keeley, who will post every Friday. As always, thanks for reading, and we welcome any and all comments these guest blogs provoke. Guest post by Carol Keeley Young women of a certain temperament tend to have a Frida Kahlo period. Mine bloomed post-Plath, pre-Rilke. I was bewitched by the…