I came to Banaras in the winter of 2010 seeking answer to one question: was the sari—the nine-yard piece of cloth worn by Indian women—Hindu or Muslim? This might sound like an odd question, but in the context of India it isn’t, where even allegedly eating beef can get a person beaten to death, or while killing a cow in the state of Gujarat earns life imprisonment.
The Syncretic Saris of Banaras Read More »
The Fall offers storytelling lessons valuable to all writers and artists, which is one reason I’m repeatedly drawn to its magic and wonder.
“The Fall”: A Storytelling Masterpiece of Epic Proportions Read More »
We don’t owe it to anyone to make our writing nice, or easy, or palatable. Maybe we should start asking ourselves who we’re protecting when we pan away, and why we’re protecting them.
Abject Horror: The Gratuitous Honesty of Hanya Yanagihara and Stephen King Read More »
I had just enough experience working with teenagers to know they’re merciless bullshit detectors. I also remembered how my classmates and I had treated some of our teachers—teachers who would now be my colleagues.
The public nature of the hate is critical to its Americanizing function. Shouting hate slogans, hateful slurs, is our form of communist denunciation and coerced betrayals of loved ones — only, instead of marking Party membership, by offering up traitors to a cause, capitalists, enemies of state — we signal we are part of the majority by verbalizing hate, demonization, exclusion.
Safe: A Meditation on Charlottesville and Beyond Read More »
With all the weight of future uncertainties — predictions of ever greater social despair, economic collapse, another world war, concerns for the end of natural resources and therefore the wildernesses that sustain all of us — Dan Gerber’s Particles: New and Selected Poems is a deeply human meditation more timely and timeless than could have ever imagined.
The Future Every Moment: A Review of Dan Gerber’s “Particles” Read More »
Sometimes, you circle and you circle, and you never find the point. But here is mine. I don’t know who will read my novel. I don’t know in what numbers. To ask these questions is to drive myself insane. So here is a better question to drive myself crazy as the days count down. Why do I read in the first place? Why do you?
The very first night as we sip our muse-inducing elderflower wine, Alexander Weinstein, founder of the Institute, opens the door of the conference room to symbolically cast out our inner critics — those editorial voices in our heads who tell us we’re not good enough, who bring us down, who impose self-doubt.
The Writer’s Playground Read More »
Though I in no way consider John Darnielle to be the only artist who negotiates his connection with his fans through sharing his pain, I appreciate the way he has interrogated this dynamic in his recent work, both lyrically and in prose.
Fandom and Shared Suffering in the Work of John Darnielle Read More »
I had so many of these little notes that I would sometimes scroll down the screen just to see them riffle up, a blur of words that sang of possibility. They belonged to the future, and I carried them, clustered, in my pocket.
Hoarding Notes: The Uselessness of the Writer’s Notebook Read More »
