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#memoir
fromwww.theguardian.com
20 hours ago
Books

Enough of this me me me': Blake Morrison on memoir in the age of oversharing

Memoirs have evolved to embrace candor and vulnerability, allowing anyone to share their personal stories of trauma and identity.
fromVulture
2 weeks ago
Books

Tom Junod's Family Secrets

Tom Junod's memoir investigates his father's hidden life through reported journalism, uncovering affairs and secrets beneath a charismatic public persona.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
20 hours ago

Enough of this me me me': Blake Morrison on memoir in the age of oversharing

Memoirs have evolved to embrace candor and vulnerability, allowing anyone to share their personal stories of trauma and identity.
Books
fromVulture
2 weeks ago

Tom Junod's Family Secrets

Tom Junod's memoir investigates his father's hidden life through reported journalism, uncovering affairs and secrets beneath a charismatic public persona.
#ben-lerner
fromVulture
1 day ago
Writing

Ben Lerner's Big Feelings

Ben Lerner's new book, Transcription, explores the complexities of authorial voice and the nature of interviews through a unique narrative structure.
fromThe New Yorker
5 days ago
Writing

The Ample Rewards of Ben Lerner's Slender New Novel

An interview with Ben Lerner reveals complexities of memory and influence in art and literature.
Writing
fromVulture
1 day ago

Ben Lerner's Big Feelings

Ben Lerner's new book, Transcription, explores the complexities of authorial voice and the nature of interviews through a unique narrative structure.
Writing
fromThe New Yorker
5 days ago

The Ample Rewards of Ben Lerner's Slender New Novel

An interview with Ben Lerner reveals complexities of memory and influence in art and literature.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
2 days ago

Melvin Edwards, Who Sculpted a New Vocabulary for Political Art, Dies at 88

Melvin Edwards, influential sculptor, passed away at 88, known for his innovative abstractions reflecting art history and the legacy of Atlantic slavery.
Mental health
fromwww.theguardian.com
3 days ago

The manosphere is dead and no one cares about Andrew Tate any more': the poet taking on toxic masculinity

Sam Browne uses performance poetry to address mental health and masculinity, aiming to change perceptions and support men in their struggles.
#bob-dylan
Music
fromwww.theguardian.com
5 days ago

AI lectures, Old West folk heroes and Mark Twain: what is Bob Dylan up to joining Patreon?

Bob Dylan's unexpected launch of a Patreon raises questions about authorship and the choice of platform.
Books
fromConsequence
5 days ago

Bob Dylan's AI "Lectures from the Grave" Are an Accidental Warning for What Not to Do

Bob Dylan's new Patreon account offers AI-generated content, raising questions about authenticity and the role of technology in creative expression.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 day ago

Unconventional Novels About Conventional People

Aging revolutionaries and conformists share parallel narratives of disillusionment and the loss of youthful dreams in recent literature.
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 week ago

Daunting, inspiring, comforting, terrifying: the writers who can make silence as eloquent as words

A vision lay before him: Fleet Street blanketed with snow, silent, empty, pure white, and, at the end of it, the huge and majestic form of Saint Paul's Cathedral. It was a spellbinding moment: the great thoroughfare temporarily devoid of carts and carriages, the cathedral looming blurrily out of the still-falling snowflakes a real-life snow globe.
London
Arts
fromArtforum
4 days ago

Jacob Lawrence and the Unfinished History of American Inequality

Jacob Lawrence's art addresses migration, racial inequalities, and social issues, making it relevant to contemporary societal challenges faced in the US.
Writing
fromwww.theguardian.com
4 days ago

Transcription by Ben Lerner review a stunning exploration of technology and storytelling

The novel explores themes of touch, familial inheritance, and the complexities of communication through a narrative involving a final interview with a mentor.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 day ago

The best recent poetry review roundup

The collection features unrhymed sonnets exploring the relationship between landscape, language, and human experience amidst themes of illness and trauma.
Digital life
fromFast Company
1 week ago

Is AI killing the human voice in writing?

Predictive language technologies challenge individual expression by influencing how writers generate and complete their thoughts.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
3 days ago

Baldwin by Nicholas Boggs review the relationships that drove a genius

James Baldwin's legacy has been revitalized, particularly through Raoul Peck's documentary, despite earlier criticisms of his work and its relevance.
Independent films
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 weeks ago

Orwell went off to fight. I thought I'd have to do the same': Raoul Peck on his intimate connection with the writer

Raoul Peck, a Haitian-born filmmaker known for examining intellectual history and power structures, found unexpected relevance in George Orwell's work despite initial skepticism.
Women
fromThe New Yorker
3 weeks ago

The Feminist Visionary Who Lost the Plot

Elizabeth Cady Stanton's experience of discrimination at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention catalyzed her feminist activism, though her sense of intellectual superiority later contributed to bigoted views.
Philosophy
fromHarvard Gazette
3 weeks ago

Where have all the public intellectuals gone? - Harvard Gazette

Public intellectuals are essential in democratic cultures to articulate unformed ideas and help citizens understand their values, but conditions supporting intellectual life in America are eroding due to social and economic shifts.
#black-literature
fromDefector
1 week ago
Writing

Namwali Serpell On Understanding Toni Morrison The Author, Not The Icon | Defector

Writing
fromDefector
1 week ago

Namwali Serpell On Understanding Toni Morrison The Author, Not The Icon | Defector

Black literature's significance in America often emphasizes political utility over artistic value, limiting its broader appreciation.
Miscellaneous
fromLGBTQ Nation
3 weeks ago

The Black lesbian poet & activist who preached intersectionality before the word even existed - LGBTQ Nation

Pat Parker's poetry insisted that race, gender, sexuality, and class were inseparable forces shaping Black lesbian experience and American political life.
US Elections
fromThe Nation
3 weeks ago

George Packer's Liberal Imagination

The Short American Century, spanning 1945-2016, progressed through four distinct eras of confidence, skepticism, exuberance, and hubris before ending with Trump's 2016 election, which shattered liberal consensus about permanent American dominance.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
5 days ago

How Long Can You Live Your Ideals?

Pat Calhoun chooses parenthood over radicalism, paralleling Elsa Haddish's struggle between her militant past and raising her daughter safely.
Books
fromSlate Magazine
1 week ago

A Self-Published Book Became an Unexpected Bestseller. I Read It-and I Can See Why.

Theo of Golden, a self-published novel by Allen Levi, achieved remarkable success, topping bestseller lists and captivating readers with its unique story and themes.
Writing
fromHarvard Gazette
2 weeks ago

The art of College poetry - Harvard Gazette

Harvard College hosts three National Youth Poet Laureates who emphasize performance techniques, personal storytelling, and the transformative power of poetry in their academic and artistic pursuits.
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 weeks ago

Howl by Howard Jacobson review a tragicomic portrait of a Jewish man's despair

Howard Jacobson writes characters at their wits' end; those characters are usually men, and those men are usually Jewish. Additionally, and problematically for both them and everyone around them, their collective wits are capacious: easily enlarged to allow idiosyncrasy to bloom into neurosis, preoccupation into obsession.
Writing
fromDefector
1 month ago

A Complimentary Profile Of Jason Lee That Was Surprisingly Difficult To Publish | Defector

It's kind of a little local community hang spot as much as it is a retail store. You could buy analog cameras or photo books at the shop. If you're like me, you could browse in order to motivate yourself to dig your old film camera out of the closet. Or you could just hang out, talk art, and make friends.
Los Angeles
Books
fromwww.npr.org
3 weeks ago

Author Luke Kennard talks about his novel, 'Black Bag'

Luke Kennard's novel 'Black Bag' fictionalizes a 1967 psychology experiment where a silent, bagged actor in a classroom gradually becomes liked by students through repeated exposure, exploring how familiarity transforms perception.
Writing
fromElite Traveler
3 weeks ago

Life Lessons With Author David Coggins

Living an interesting life requires embracing improbable efforts, starting from the ground floor in unfamiliar pursuits, prioritizing face-to-face conversation, and developing deep attachment to specific places.
fromThe Atlantic
3 weeks ago

Salman Rushdie Doesn't Want to Be Your 'Free Speech Barbie'

When you've written 23 books, it's a little frustrating to be known not even for a book, but for something that happened to a book in 1989—when that was my fifth published book and this is my 23rd. Can we please talk about books? I keep trying to say.
Books
Writing
fromBusiness Matters
1 month ago

Mara Naaman: A Literary Voice Shaping Culture

Building a life around ideas means prioritizing process and learning over outcomes and external validation, enabling deeper intellectual and creative growth.
Books
fromIntelligencer
3 weeks ago

Ibram X. Kendi Can't Separate His Fame From How to Be an Antiracist

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's antiracism framework defines racism as a descriptive policy term based on material effects, not a personal identity, though institutions misappropriated his work for performative diversity initiatives.
fromOregon ArtsWatch * Arts & Culture News
1 month ago

Sidney Porter: A legend recovered * Oregon ArtsWatch

No single musician better represents that contribution and its nearly forgotten history than pianist Sidney Porter. From 1941 until his untimely death in 1970, he cast a 6'8" shadow over Portland's jazz scene as both a performer and nightclub owner. Two months after he died, more than 3,000 people filled the Hoyt Hotel in a 10-hour show of respect that included 20 bands and more than 160 musicians.
Music
Arts
fromThe New Yorker
1 month ago

The Haunting Talent of Noah Davis

Noah Davis produced a diverse, emotionally resonant body of work before dying at thirty-two, combining varied styles and founding the Underground Museum.
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

One of Our Own

For Lowell There are things which, said and true, are of this generation's past; of fighting freedom's battles and of taking off the mask- stories of the actions taken, to blot out the blights of sin, how heroes and the valorous fought their enemies within, Would we be traitors to our bugle, which beckons with its call? - They won freedom for their people but in fine print said: be damned.
US politics
Europe politics
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

The Country That Made Its Own Canon

Sweden released a national culture canon, sparking controversy over national identity as immigration rises and the nationalist Sweden Democrats gain political influence.
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Matthew Kelly: Something extinct I'd bring back to life? Wokeness a good thing that's been hijacked'

Born in Lancashire, Matthew Kelly, 75, studied drama at Manchester Polytechnic and acted at the Liverpool Everyman. He moved into TV, presenting Game for a Laugh in the 80s, You Bet! in the 90s and Stars in their Eyes from 1993 to 2004. Having returned to the stage, he received an Olivier award in 2004 for his role in Of Mice and Men in London's West End.
Television
Books
fromHarvard Gazette
4 weeks ago

That's a book? - Harvard Gazette

Italo Calvino used tarot card decks as a computational system to generate interconnected narratives, predating modern AI by decades and demonstrating how structured systems can create complex literary works.
LGBT
fromThe Walrus
1 month ago

Heated Rivalry Holds Up a Mirror to My Deepest Self | The Walrus

Heated Rivalry's queer Slavic portrayal triggered a personal reckoning and exposed Eastern Europe's political manipulation and censorship of LGBTQ+ visibility.
Film
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

My cultural awakening: Thirteen influenced my hedonistic youth, until a psychotic episode ended it'

A 13-year-old experienced a sudden shift into self-destructive rebellious behavior influenced by peers and the film Thirteen, seeking acceptance and identity.
Books
fromInsideHook
1 month ago

What to Read Right Now, According to Cool Men

Men discuss fiction books they recommend others read, including Pulitzer Prize winners, memoirs, and fantasy novels to combat reading disengagement.
Social justice
fromMedium
3 years ago

Confessions of a Race Writer

Race writers risk performing a narrowed, victimized 'blackness' while often holding privilege and a platform to speak for marginalized people.
Left-wing politics
fromConsequence
1 month ago

The Lesson of Niemoller, Rewritten on the Streets of Minneapolis (Guest Editorial)

A Minneapolis execution triggered Holocaust memories for Steve Rapport, connecting contemporary violence to historical trauma while revealing differences in who is targeted by state violence.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 month ago

A Cold Plunge Into Glenn Ligon's Blue

Glenn Ligon merges language and saturated blue to transform abstraction into perception-driven figuration that probes formal limits and racialized meanings.
#toni-morrison
Television
fromInsideHook
2 months ago

Danny McBride Is Taking on Modern Masculinity - In Book Form

Danny McBride will publish Thrilling Tales of Modern Men, a short-story collection exploring chaotic, often toxic modern masculinity, on June 23 via Random House.
fromHarper's Magazine
1 month ago

The Worst Years of Our Life, by John R. MacArthur

The unjust and brutal killing of Renee Nicole Good-a middle-class white woman-by a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis in early January occurred less than a mile away from where George Floyd-a poor black man-was unjustly and brutally murdered by a local police officer five years earlier. I wonder if the horrible parallel that connects them, in terms of geography and civic violence, is just a coincidence
US politics
Books
fromVulture
1 month ago

How Should a White Woman Writer Be?

White women writers from the Dimes Square literary scene are receiving major book launches and media attention, sparking both acclaim and online criticism about nepotism and industry favoritism.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 month ago

Keeping a Critical Eye on the Art World With Damien Davis

Damien Davis will address systemic inequities in the art market and propose actionable strategies for a more equitable, transparent art ecosystem.
Books
fromThe New Yorker
1 month ago

Adrian Matejka Reads C. D. Wright

Adrian Matejka reads poetry selections including C. D. Wright's 'Against the Encroaching Grays' and his own poem 'Almost Home' in conversation with Kevin Young.
Writing
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

Literary Theory

Words carry multiple meanings; 'swallow' embodies both bird and ingestion, showing language's power to alter perception and emotional states.
Arts
fromwww.npr.org
2 months ago

Julian Barnes' playful new book is also his 'official departure'

An aging writer confronts mortality, memory, and repetition while considering retirement and revisiting past relationships through fiction blending autobiography and invention.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Another World by Melvyn Bragg review portrait of the broadcaster as a young man

Melvyn Bragg leaves Wigton for Wadham College, embraces Oxford life, explores culture and politics, joins demonstrations, and later reassesses his imperial-minded motives.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

'How do you really tell the truth about this moment?': George Saunders on ghosts, mortality and Trump's America

Ghost stories are used to explore mortality, memories, and ethical legacy, forcing characters to confront past actions and discover more truthful perspective.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

George Saunders Has a New Mantra

George Saunders writes with a luminous, frequently supernatural imagination that pairs large-heartedness with unsparing wit and a ritualized, anywhere-capable writing practice.
Books
fromOregon ArtsWatch * Arts & Culture News
2 months ago

LitWatch February: Langston Hughes, historian Keisha Blain, Colum McCann * Oregon ArtsWatch

Langston Hughes’s poetry fuses jazz and blues rhythms to express Black American experience, inspiring centennial events and community celebrations.
Books
fromThe Nation
2 months ago

Ishmael Reed on His Diverse Inspirations

A 1960s artist navigated and bridged Black cultural nationalism and the white counterculture while collaborating with multicultural avant-garde artists.
Books
fromVulture
2 months ago

What's a Satirist to Do in Times Like These?

An oil executive confronts his role in causing mass death and climate catastrophe on his deathbed as supernatural visitors press him to face the consequences.
Books
fromKqed
3 months ago

Encore: LA's Former Poet Laureate on Storytelling and Survival | KQED

Luis Rodriguez credits reading and writing with sustaining his resilience throughout his life.
Books
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

How Do You Write About the Inexplicable?

Rational skepticism coexists with a persistent tendency to personify evil and read coincidences as omens.
Books
fromThe Nation
2 months ago

George Whitmore's Unsparing Queer Fiction

A 1987 novel titled Nebraska uses the state's flat, isolating landscape to frame a family chamber drama that serves as an oblique allegory of AIDS.
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

Bring Back Moral Fiction

It was once commonly understood that fiction was in the wisdom business, that it offered not only aesthetic pleasure but also moral improvement. This function of literature was not tough to spot. One of the first English novels was Samuel Richardson's 1740 work, Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded-a title not meant ironically. Through the 19th century, many authors turned directly to the reader with philosophical and social (if sometimes ironic) commentary: "It is a truth universally acknowledged"; "It was the best of times"; "All happy families are alike." For readers not up to the challenge of full George Eliot novels, her enterprising publisher compiled a volume of Eliot's many Wise, Witty, and Tender Sayings, in order to more broadly distribute "a morality as pure as it is impassioned."
Books
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Glyph by Ali Smith review bearing witness to the war in Gaza

Glyph confronts Israeli apartheid and genocide in Palestine, using Petra and Patch's names, etymology, and imagery to intensify ethical and linguistic urgency.
fromPublishersWeekly.com
1 month ago

WI2026: PW Talks with Xochitl Gonzalez

In addition to writing fiction, you're a staff writer for the and a screenwriter. How do you think of your career? I think of myself as a storyteller. I'm nosy, so once I'm telling a story, I want to know what happens. I do find, with fiction, I can't toggle in and out of it. It's like acting, where you have to stay with that character, in that world.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

A Biography Without 'The Boring Bits'

Sophia Stewart poses a choice that many biographers struggle with: "what to do with the boring bits."
Books
fromLos Angeles Times
1 month ago

Michael Silverblatt, 'genius' host of KCRW literary show 'Bookworm,' dies at 73

Although Silverblatt's 30-minute show, which ran from 1989 to 2022 and was nationally syndicated, included interviews with celebrated authors including Gore Vidal, Kazuo Ishiguro, David Foster Wallace, Susan Orlean, Joan Didion and Zadie Smith, the real star of the show was the host himself, the nasal-voiced radio personality who more than once in life was told he did not have a voice for his medium.
Books
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Cameo by Rob Doyle review a fantasy of literary celebrity in the culture war era

Perky, satirical portrait centred on a globe-trotting Dublin figure whose sensational life—crime, drugs, sex, espionage—and pettiness lampoon contemporary literary culture and celebrity.
Books
fromPortland Monthly
1 month ago

Chuck Klosterman's 'Football' Journeys into America's Media-Addled Soul

NFL football is simultaneously conservative and liberal, highly edited with few surprises, and exerts vast societal influence while facing safety and cultural contradictions.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

She dared to be difficult': How Toni Morrison shaped the way we think

Black womanhood often overlaps with being labeled difficult, and literary complexity and societal judgment turn that difficulty into moral failing.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

There is a sense of things careening towards a head': TS Eliot prize winner Karen Solie

Karen Solie's work confronts ecological and social harms directly, refusing to aestheticize suffering while insisting art must keep attention and counteract distraction.
Books
fromwww.npr.org
2 months ago

Poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths says she won't let pain be 'the engine that drives the ship'

Rachel Eliza Griffiths experienced dissociative episodes and memory blackouts after her best friend's death and during subsequent trauma, and she chronicled these experiences in a memoir.
Books
fromHarvard Gazette
2 months ago

The stories behind the books - Harvard Gazette

Harvard's library collection includes books that use layered images, movable elements, and raised type to create interactive, tactile, and accessible reading experiences.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Poem of the week: Renegade by Lionel Johnson

A voice mourns lost ideals and disillusionment, preserving an ineradicable echo of memory through recurring refrains, musical cadences, and layered imagery.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Rebel English Academy by Mohammed Hanif review a sure-fire Booker contender

Dark, irony-soaked comedy and farce expose Pakistan's political repression, religious hypocrisy, and violence with subversive, satirical imagination.
Books
fromHarvard Gazette
2 months ago

What karaoke taught Elizabeth McCracken about fiction- Harvard Gazette

Accepting failure and personal limits fosters sustained creative work, prioritizing writing while embracing imperfect ambitions and private pleasures.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

The Fine Balance Required of an 'Authorial Rant'

Lionel Shriver's political provocations increasingly overshadow her fiction; A Better Life reads like an op-ed and renders characters sociologically rather than psychologically.
Books
fromwww.npr.org
2 months ago

Why 'Vigil' author George Saunders often revisits death in his work

K.J. Boone, a dying oil tycoon, is visited by ghosts confronting his climate-denying legacy while a woman named Jill comforts the dying.
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

The Writer's Magic Trick

A writer is a kind of magician. Their job is to create living, three-dimensional people out of the ordinary stuff of ink and paper. This is no easy task, because readers can't literally hear, touch, or observe a character. Everything that defines a human being in real life-the physical space they occupy, or how they smell, feel, and sound-is stripped away, replaced by description. But authors have one major, mystical advantage: They can show you what's happening inside of someone's brain.
Books
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