How the Pandemic Has Changed Our Reading Lives “Many of the readers who have more reading time are finding that the mental toll of current events is hurting their attention spans, or seeing their genre preferences shift and twist.” Leah Rachel von Essen “talked to authors, book bloggers, librarians, and general readers to investigate how […]
J.K. Rowling’s ‘Troubled Blood’ is her most ambitious Robert Galbraith novel yet — and likely the most divisive I have liked J.K. Rowling’s mystery novels featuring Cormoran Strike—published under the pen name Robert Galbraith—very much. But Rowling herself has been criticized recently for transphobic remarks she made earlier this year. (This article contains a link
Many writers say they can actually hear the voices of their characters – here’s why I don’t write fiction, but I read a lot about and talk with people who do. I’m always fascinated when fiction writers say that a character either appeared and demanded to be written about or appeared to object when the
Related Posts: Life in an Independent Bookstore Near Seattle Some of the Less Obvious Effects of the Coronavirus Pandemic Book-Related News for Self-Isolation and Social Distancing More Arts-Related Pandemic News All of my recent posts have been lists of COVID-19—related links. I just kept collecting these links, almost obsessively. Now that we’re approaching the end
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“What Do I Know To Be True?”: Emma Copley Eisenberg on Truth in Nonfiction, Writing Trauma, and The Dead Girl Newsroom Jacqueline Alnes talks with Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of true-crime book The Third Rainbow Girl, “about what it means to seek truth in nonfiction, and how writing the personal can allow for more complicated
In an effort to motivate myself to produce more substantive posts next year, I’ve decided to sign up for the 2020 Book Blog Discussion Challenge. This challenge is hosted by two book bloggers: Nicole at Feed Your Fiction Addiction Shannon at It Starts at Midnight Thanks to Nicole and Shannon for running this annual challenge,
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The first fairytales were feminist critiques of patriarchy. We need to revive their legacy Melissa Ashley finds the origin of fairytales to “a coterie of 17th century French female writers known as the conteuses, or storytellers.” Fairytales “crystallised as a genre” in this time when women, sometimes as young as 15, were married off—often to
There is one form of power that has fascinated me ever since I was a girl, even though it has been widely colonized by men: the power of storytelling. Telling stories really is a kind of power, and not an insignificant one. Stories give shape to experience, sometimes by accommodating traditional literary forms, sometimes by
Quotation: Elena Ferrante: Storytelling as Power Read More »
Tips for Writers and Readers Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again. —Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier Read that sentence, one of the most famous first sentences in literature, aloud. Notice its cadence. The rhythm lulls you toward sleepiness—appropriate for a dream. And the rest of the book hinges on that final word,
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10 Best Whodunits I love a good mystery! Here mystery novelist John Verdon (his latest book is Wolf Lake, featuring NYPD homicide detective Dave Gurney) offers a list of “ten remarkable works, each of which has a special appeal to my whodunit mentality”: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles Hamlet by William Shakespeare The Hound of the
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