All Essays

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  Mentors: Marianne Moore

  "One may be pardoned, yes I know / One may, for love undying."

  Jeffrey KindleyJan 3, 2012
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  Notes on Theatre

  We cannot know what we are doing. We can only know when we are doing it wrong.

  John StepplingDec 31, 2011
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  Mentors: Marvin Mudrick

  I would not tear papers apart — say they're no good and say they don't work — unless I believed that all of you are capable of writing good fiction.

  Bob Blaisdell, Jervey TervalonDec 30, 2011
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  Mentors: Alison Leslie Gold

  What Gold modeled for me was the idea that the writer delivers stories that the reader needs. The point is to do that job well.

  Rita WilliamsDec 28, 2011
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  Mentors: J.H. Prynne

  I sometimes say that Jeremy Prynne taught me everything I know about poetry: which is why I know nothing about poetry.

  Geoff NicholsonDec 28, 2011
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  The Afterlife of Tintin

  Tintin est Mort!

  Dec 27, 2011
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  Mentors: Barry Hannah

  "There are some howlers among the pros as delectable as the successes and just as fine a tool of learning."

  Clarissa RomanoDec 26, 2011
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  The Ghost of Books: Past, Present, and Future

  "The Ghost of Books: Past, Present, and Future" is an experiment not in terror and not necessarily Dickensian.

  Antoine Wilson, Ayelet Waldman, Ben Ehrenreich, Ben Loory, Dinah Lenney, Gary Phillips, Jane Smiley, Jennifer Egan, Julie Cline, Laila Lalami, Mark Haskell Smith, Mary Otis, Matt Weiland, Meghan Daum, Morgan Macgregor, Padget Powell, Sesshu Foster, Stephen Elliott, Sven BirkertsDec 23, 2011
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  L.A. Woman

  What truly sets Babitz apart from L.A. writers like Joan Didion or Nathanael West is that a part of her still buys the Hollywood fantasy.

  Steffie NelsonDec 18, 2011

• Was Gertrude Stein a Collaborator?

  Stein recommends Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize, just as Freud "recommends" the Gestapo — with the same perfect irony.

  Dec 17, 2011
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  The End of the Beginning

  Los Angeles was different. No tear gas here: our elected representatives wanted us to be comfortable.

  Ben EhrenreichDec 13, 2011
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  Tiger Lady: On Joan Williams

  Faulkner tried the personae of mentor, father figure, and literary conduit in an effort to have a love affair that trumped the other roles.

  Lisa C. HickmanDec 11, 2011
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  Sucker Punch

  A response to Glen David Gold’s piece

  
  

  about William Faulkner and Joan Williams.

  E.C. McCarthyDec 11, 2011
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  The Pump You Pump the Water From

  Writing can't be planned for or predicted, and when it happens, when the surge begins, it brings a satisfaction like nothing else.

  Sven BirkertsDec 5, 2011
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  Letter From Cairo

  Because riot police aimed their firearms at protesters’ faces, over 80 Egyptians lost one of their eyes.

  Frederick DeknatelDec 5, 2011
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  Between the Georges: In Memory of George Hickenlooper (1963-2010)

  He seemed poised at last for the first-class recognition he had worked for so vigorously his whole life.

  F.X. FeeneyDec 4, 2011