Meeting and Making Heroes
Jenn Shapland’s lyrical debut demonstrates how she has been made by, and has remade, her hero Carson McCullers—and how this relationship between writer and subject is at the heart of every biography, and every memoir.
Carson McCullers
“She had a face that would haunt me for the rest of my life”: Looking for Annemarie Schwarzenbach
Grappling with the complexities of Annemarie Schwarzenbach’s life–falling in love with her, in a way–entails addressing not just her political and ideological stances in light of her personal relationships, but also the realities of queerness within history, and the interplay of both of these aspects.
Homesickness for Divided Places and Unknown Lands
When does a home become so hostile that you should consider leaving? Southern writers complicate clearly defined ideas of homesickness. In states where discrimination was legislated, hate crimes not prosecuted, and outsiders viewed with suspicion, nostalgia mixes with escapist impulses, love of landscape with horror at racial violence.
On Music and Story
I had a professor in college who maintained that writers write about artists in other disciplines—painters, musicians, sculptors, etc.—when they want to write about writers without actually writing about writers. There’s probably something to this.