Here’s a quick look at some of the great books out during the first week of November. Happy pub day to all! John Banville, Mrs. Osmond Knopf From Kirkus Reviews: “A sequel to The Portrait of a Lady that may well delight…
We are often as familiar with the settings in our fiction as we are with our own homes and towns. We know in which drawer Ariel keeps her revolver; we know how how long it takes to get to the…
Favorite Opening: “North Of,” Marie-Helene Bertino There are American flags on school windows, on cars, on porch swings. It is the year I bring Bob Dylan home for Thanksgiving. We park in front of my mom’s house—my mom, who has…
Here’s a quick look at some of the great books out the week of October 30. Happy pub day to all! Daniel Alarcón, The King Is Always Above the People: Stories Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House From Publishers Weekly:…
Has this happened to you? You have a good idea for an ending of a short story. You figure out the plot twist that will bring together the various narrative threads. You think of that “aha” moment that will crystallize…
Fellowships Who wouldn’t want a writing fellowship? A year or two with minimal professional obligations and time to write. Most of these opportunities are fiercely competitive—not surprisingly—and application costs are a consideration. But many people apply year after year, with…
Borrowing a craft element from another writer can be a great way to kickstart a new project, or re-energize an existing one. There are many ways to do this, of course, but here we want to focus on borrowing the…
Hidden Machinery, Margot Livesey Tin House Books, 2017 A collection of ten essays on writing by the great Margot Livesey is a book to be savored, to be read again and again. A thoughtful reader as well as writer, Livesey’s…
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, the newest novel by Hannah Tinti, uses two separate timelines as its primary structure. The first timeline follows Samuel Hawley and his daughter Loo after they have moved back to a fishing village north…
Here’s a quick look at some of the great books out the week of October 16. Happy pub day to all! C. Morgan Babst, The Floating World Algonquin / Workman From Kirkus Reviews: “’Grief was infinite, though, wasn’t it,’ thinks…
