In Search of Your Own Voice: A Q&A With Poet and Editor Quincy Troupe
The editor of Black Renaissance Noire on the importance of publishing new and emerging writers.
Genre: Creative Nonfiction
The Final Portrait
Caption:
In 1964, the memoirist, novelist, and biographer James Lord sat for a portrait for the artist Alberto Giacometti. The painting session was intended to take only a few hours, but lasted weeks and became the inspiration for Lord’s book A Giacometti Portrait (Doubleday, 1965). In this film adaptation of the book, The Final Portrait, written and directed by Stanley Tucci, Armie Hammer stars as Lord with Geoffrey Rush as Giacometti.
Genre:
Top British and Irish Novelists, Cowardice in Publishing, and More
Anelise Chen defines autofiction; Twitter accounts that impersonate writers; the most well-preserved section of the Iliad; and other news.
Exhibitionist
“One Life: Sylvia Plath,” an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., features a selection of the poet’s manuscripts, journals, clothing, and other personal objects, including a typewriter and even a lock of her hair, as well as numerous pieces of Plath’s artwork: collages, drawings, self-portraits, and photographs. The museum also incorporates other types of art and interdisciplinary projects into its Plath programming, such as “I Am Vertical,” a dance performed in December in the museum’s courtyard, created by choreographer-in-residence Dana Tai Soon Burgess and named after one of Plath’s poems. Envision how your own life and work as a writer might be presented in an art museum, and write a lyric essay about this hypothetical exhibit. What objects would be on display? Which e-mails or photographs would help tell your stories? Consider using different forms and conventions, such as lists and fragments.
Maya Angelou’s Ninetieth Birthday, Roxane Gay’s Pop-Up Magazine, and More
Joan Silber Wins PEN/Faulkner Award; Chinese government cracks down on Hong Kong booksellers; women on male authors describing women; and other news.
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
Caption:
“Literature is more of a community effort than most people realize.” Alexander Chee talks about how the essays came together for his first collection, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays (Mariner Books, 2018), with Rich Fahle of PBS Books at the 2018 AWP Annual Conference & Book Fair in Tampa.
Genre:
A Bookstore With No Staff, #saferLIT Campaign, and More
The “literary heart of America” is in Virginia; Barnes & Noble launches book app; Weike Wang wins PEN/Hemingway Award; and other news.
National Poetry Month, Anisfield-Wolf Winners, and More
Fifty new writers to watch; Elizabeth Ebert, the “grand dame of cowboy poetry,” has died; NPR’s Twitter poetry challenge; and other news.
Siri Hustvedt on Art and Science
Caption:
“I think physicists and poets are not as different as we like to think. The same unconscious processes are at work in both.” In this interview from the 2017 Louisiana Literature festival in Denmark, Siri Hustvedt talks about her background in neuroscience, the experiences of writing both nonfiction and fiction, and the value of approaching questions from different interdisciplinary perspectives.
Flashbacks in Literature, Emily Skaja Wins Walt Whitman Award, and More
Anita Shreve has died; Meg Wolitzer’s new novel; championship rounds of literary March Madness; and other news.
Pages
