Roundup: Traditions

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.

Food and family are the most common holiday traditions. For those of us celebrating, it’s easy to predict the Thanksgiving Day spread and which family member will show up late to the festivities. But it’s that comfort of familiarity, of pumpkin pie and your grandfather’s snores from the recliner, that gives us anticipation.

In preparation for the holiday, we’ve compiled some tasty offerings from the Ploughshares blog and around the Internet for you to enjoy.

From Ploughshares

• Caitlin O’Neil shares her writing recipe with a few helpful tips on cooking up a good story. Plus get a bonus recipe of Roasted Carrot Soup in how Writing is Like Cooking.

• Thanksgiving time is often family time, with fathers everywhere settling into a post-turkey coma. But, while the dads of America are asleep, Ian Stansel has a couple replacements in the World’s Best (Literary) Dads. 

• Whether it’s homemade cranberry sauce, apple pie with melted cheddar cheese, or some calf’s foot jelly, everyone has their own food traditions. Calves’ Feet and Cake: Adventures in 100-Year-Old Recipes by S. Hope Mills might introduce a few new food trends to try.

• Ladette Randolph’s series, Writers and Their Pets, is a heartwarming reminder that the definition of family extends to our furry companions. Pets of the scaled and slimy variety are counted.

• For those who want to combine their love of food and writing, Wesley Rothman serves up A Poem Feast, featuring a smorgasbord of food writing.  

From around the Web

• Want to combine your love of books with your festive personality? Book Riot has some bookish decorating ideas!

• If you’ve ever wondered if there was a place to cultivate your love of culinary literature, wonder no more! Deep South Magazine reports that the first library in the South, specializing in food lit, is now open.

• For the poets out there who never miss a game on Monday nights and are looking forward to Thanksgiving match-ups, The Rumpus has an ongoing series, Fantasy Football for Poets.

• If you’re looking to offset the family cheer, Electric Lit has a heaping dose of Norman Mailer insulting your favorite writers.