In our Roundups segment, we’re looking back at all the great posts since the blog started in 2009. We explore posts from our archives as well as other top literary magazines and websites, centered on a certain theme to help you jump-start your week.
We’ve hit the dog-days of summer, dear readers, and the mercury is climbing. As the days get hotter, we dream of fleeing to the beach or the mountains or our back porches to relax and take a break. Vacation is not only good for us as humans, but it can also be good for us as writers. So this week Ploughshares bring you a roundup on taking your writing on vacation.
To combat the siren call of summer laziness, The Loft Literary Center offers “4 Ways to Keep up Your Writing Habit this Summer.” Useful for both your focused and beach writing.
From the ObservatoryJulio CortázarTrans. Anne McLeanArchipelago Books, August 2011130 pages$18.00 The first time I read Julio Cortázar’s From the Observatory, I thought I’d succumbed to a fever-dream. Eels slip, muscularly, into Möbius strips; the night is red-haired and the marble cold. I had no idea what I was reading or where I was, and I…
Feminists have long attempted to “take back” feminine mythological figures and reconceptualize male-centric myths, but Analicia Sotelo’s poetry collection goes further, not only subverting feminine stereotypes but also challenging the common wisdom of the symbolic “feminine.”
Each story is short yet encompassing, and while the plots don’t connect, the collection coheres thematically. Nearly all of the protagonists and those characters eddying around them feel this secret habit of sorrow.
