Mary Daniels Brown

My mother always insisted that, as soon as I was old enough to sit up, she’d find me in my crib after my nap babbling away, with a Little Golden Book on my lap. I’ve had my nose in a book ever since. I grew up in a small town, with the tiny town library literally in my backyard. As an only child in an unhappy home, I found comfort and companionship in books. As an adult I wanted to be Harry Potter, although I admit I’m more Hermione. My life has been a series of research projects. Reading has taught me that human lives are deliciously messy and that “it’s complicated” isn’t a punchline.

Monday Miscellany

Scientific Explanations for Why Spoilers Are So Horrible Like Jennifer Richler, I have the most recent season of Downton Abbey tucked away on my DVR, though I haven’t gotten around to watching it yet. But because of the internet and, especially Twitter, I already know what big plot turns I’ll find when I do sit

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Story Circle Network: 2012 Sarton Memoir Award Announced

Story Circle Network: 2012 Sarton Memoir Award Announced. (Austin, TX. March 22, 2013)—The Story Circle Network (SCN) is pleased to announce that Monica Wood has been granted the Sarton Women’s Memoir Award for her book When We Were the Kennedys (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012). The book tells the story of Wood’s mill town childhood in

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Monday Miscellany

How Literature Saved My Psyche: Attending a Book-Themed Therapy Session at the Center for Fiction Just read this. That is all. Nicholas Royle’s top 10 first novels Clever Nicholas Royle: First Novel, my seventh, is all about first novels (and other stuff). My narrator, a creative writing tutor, tries to help students write their debuts

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Hilary Mantel faces six newcomers in contest for women’s fiction prize

Hilary Mantel faces six newcomers in contest for women’s fiction prize | Books | The Guardian Among the contenders for the leading prize for fiction written by women is a bestselling thriller and a how-to-live-your-life memoir so divisive it had some reviewers wanting to throw it across the room. Also in the running are novels

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Letters of Note: Come on now Marlon, put up your dukes and write!

Letters of Note: Come on now Marlon, put up your dukes and write! Late-1957, with his newly released novel attracting near-universal praise from critics, Beat author Jack Kerouac aimed for the sky and wrote the following passionate letter to Marlon Brando in an effort to bring his work to the big screen. The novel in

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Monday Miscellany

“Ghost Stories”: The ubiquitous anti-feminism of young adult romances In a Guardian article last November, Tanya Gold condemned the Twilight franchise and the paranormal progeny it has spawned, calling them sado-masochistic “disempowerment fantasies” masquerading as fairy tales, normalising abuse in the name of risqué romance. But her argument – though apt – hardly goes far

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