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"She could taste with all of her skin, including her eyelids." Author and naturalist Sy Montgomery describes her first meeting with Athena, a giant Pacific octopus, at the New England Aquarium in Boston. This encounter spurred her to write The Soul of an Octopus (Atria Books, 2015), a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
"Whether I was born this way or my personality was formed by circumstance, I don't think anyone would call me an easy person to deal with..." Photographer Sally Mann reads from her memoir, Hold Still (Little, Brown, 2015), a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Research a paranormal story or legend native to your community. Write an essay that meditates on its origins, its historical context, how it characterizes your community today, and what reservations or questions it stirs up in you. Whether you’re the deepest skeptic or the most willing believer, how you engage with these supernatural tales can reveal a lot about your mind and imagination.
"When we think of Asian American literature... my hope is that you have makers, but then you have people that are there to receive it." Sarah Gambito talks with Anna Alves, Melissa R. Sipin, and Jessica Hagedorn about the growing audience for Filipino American literature at the launch party for Kuwento: Lost Things (Carayan Press, 2015), a new anthology of Filipino myths, at the Asian American Writers' Workshop in New York City.
"The mission of Deep Vellum is... to promote and foster the art and craft of translation." Will Evans, founding publisher and executive director of Deep Vellum Publishing, speaks about the need for translation in contemporary literature and his hopes for a more vibrant literary culture. The Dallas-based press is featured in Small Press Points in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Write a letter to a friend you’ve lost touch with for at least ten years—perhaps you haven’t spoken to each other because of a falling-out or one of you moved to a new town. What do you remember about the last time you saw this person? Reflect upon the ways in which you have changed and remained the same from who you were ten years ago. Examine the emotions that surface when you think about this old friend and your relationship, and the physical places that your memories take you.
"If you think the human mind is a wonderful thing, there is an infinite interest in cultivating it." Marilynne Robinson speaks with Bill Moyers about her novel Lila (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), and her thoughts on faith, democracy, and creativity. Robinson discusses her new book of essays, The Givenness of Things (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
"The mind is a much more generous resource than we're in the habit of considering it to be." The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist speaks about accessing imagination through writing and her teaching experiences at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Robinson discusses her new book of essays, The Givenness of Things (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
The term “urban legend” refers to contemporary myths often connected to popular culture that are recounted to entertain and/or explain random events. Write an essay using an urban legend as a jumping-off point for probing into what you find entertaining or unsettling. For inspiration, you might consider the stories of Bloody Mary, exploding Pop Rocks, bodily spider infestations, or alligators in the sewer.
"It's hard to protect a person you love from pain, because people often choose pain. I am a person who often chooses pain. An animal will never choose pain." Mary Gaitskill, whose new novel, The Mare (Pantheon Books, 2015), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, reads from her personal essay "Lost Cat" (Granta, 2009) at Baruch College.
