All Essays

• 

  Mentors: Steven Corbin

  A reminiscence of his mentor, writing instructor, and friend.

  Mark SarvasJan 7, 2012
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  Transactions Along the Mississippi Delta

  On literary sociality and the romance between William Faulkner and Joan Williams.

  Glen David GoldJan 6, 2012
• 

  Mentors: James Baldwin

  He missed the first class. In fact, he missed the first three.

  Matthew SpecktorJan 6, 2012
• 

  Mentors: Siddhartha Deb

  While a student of his I often felt the tectonic plates of my own opinions and tightly-held ideas loosen or shift.

  Morten Høi JensenJan 5, 2012
• 

  Mentors: Stanley Cavell

  I was inchoate and jelly-like in graduate school (kind of like a slime mold), but Cavell was kind to me anyway.

  Sianne NgaiJan 5, 2012

• The Writers that Shadow Us

  On the ghost of Graham Greene.

  Jan 4, 2012
• 

  Mentors: Marianne Moore

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

  Jeffrey KindleyJan 3, 2012
• 

  Notes on Theatre

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

  John StepplingDec 31, 2011
• 

  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
• 

  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
• 

  The Afterlife of Tintin

  Tintin est Mort!

  Dec 27, 2011
• 

  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
• 

  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