The Writers’ Room of Boston

June 24, 2015 · by Kate Gilbert | in Field Trips, The Writing Life | tagged Alexander Danner, Anita Diamant, Danielle Legros Georges, David Mamet, Derek Walcott, Gish Jen, Ha Jin, Ivan Gold, Junot Diaz, Katie Li, Laura Van den Berg, Louie Cronin, Mary Bonina, Robert Parker, Writers' Room of Boston, writers' rooms, Writing and quiet, Writing communities, writing retreats | 11 Comments

Every writer is, in the profoundest way, on his or her own, and there is little we can do to help. Inspiration comes or it doesn’t, the form comes or it doesn’t, the end comes or it doesn’t. But nothing comes without a quiet place to sit and try things, and read them over, and […]

Fiction for an Unnatural Era – The Case for Magical Realism

June 17, 2015 · by Eve Shulmister | in Craft | tagged Definition of Magic Realism, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, Kate Atkinson and Magic Realism, Life After Life, Love in the Time of Cholera, Magic Realism and Latin American fiction, Magic Realism and social commentary, Magic Realism and the everyday world, Magic Realism and the laws of time, Magic Realism vs. Science Fiction, The House of Spirits, What If novels, Why we read fiction | 7 Comments

Times are strange: our government can spy on us and say it’s for our protection. The folks who hold that abortion is murder also claim the right to carry guns. And a white woman (who claimed that she was black) gets elected local president for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Strange times […]

One Sentence at a Time: A Brief Review of Prison Writings

June 10, 2015 · by JS Epstein | in The Writing Life | tagged " Marquis de Sade and Prison Writing, E.E. Cummings and Wartime Labor Camp, Jean Genet and Prison Writing, Martin Luther King Jr's Letter from Birmingham Jail, Oscar Wilde and "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", PEN Prison Writing Program, Piper Kerman and Orange Is the New Black, Prison Literature, Thoreau's Night in Jail and Civil Disobedience, Writing as Escape, Writing as Rehabilitation | 6 Comments

In the film adaptation of Michael Chabon’s book Wonder Boys, a creative writing professor quips about a budding student of his who has just been taken into police custody: “Between you and Officer Krupke, he can be the next Jean Genet. It’s been a long time since someone wrote a really good book in jail.” […]

The Good Doctors McHaney or A Pair of Southern Literature Scholars

June 3, 2015 · by Deb Miller | in Author Interviews, The Writing Life | tagged Dr. Pearl McHaney, Dr. Tom McHaney, Eudora Welty, Eudora Welty and Human Relationships, Eudora Welty's Photography, Faulkner's Use of Language, Food in Southern Women's Culture, Kenneth M. England Professor of Southern American Literature, Literature and Southern Culture, petanque, Re-reading Great Literature, Southern Literature, William Faulkner | 19 Comments

On May 12, 2015, Georgia State University announced that Dr. Pearl Amelia McHaney has been named the new Kenneth M. England Professor of Southern American Literature, a prestigious title formerly given to only one other GSU professor, her husband, Dr. Thomas L. McHaney. Both the McHaneys agree they could never have predicted the parallels in […]