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The Millions rounds up the best literary tweets on Twitter; Flavorwire showcases twelve author selfies; Dana Stevens and Francine Prose discuss how a story’s classic marriage plot holds up; and other news.
Some of the most revealing scenes in fiction occur when characters gather for an event. The Super Bowl offers an opportunity for friends, whether they are sports fans or not, to do just that. This week, write a scene in which your protagonist is watching the Super Bowl. Is he or she playing host? Begrudgingly attending an ex’s party? Which team does he or she root for? What happens during the commercials? Sporting events provide wonderful opportunities for tension and elation. How will your characters engage with this event?
PBS NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown recently talked with Carolyn Forché, whose new anthology, Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English 1500-2001, published last month by W. W. Norton, contains the work of poets who have witnessed war, imprisonment, torture, and slavery. Forché calls the collection an "outcry of the soul."
Philip Roth restated that he is finished with the writing of novels; a new fragment of Jane Austen’s handwriting has been found; Wired reports the cost of the Amazon Prime program will increase significantly; and other news.
“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter,” wrote E. E. Cummings. Timing is important both in comedy and in poetry. Though poets often engage with serious subjects, a well-placed moment of levity can make a poem even more poignant. This week, try to incorporate humor in your own writing. It can be a funny image, a pun, or a parody. See how this moment affects the tone of your poem, or how it leads you in a new, unexpected direction.
The late actor is seen here in the 2005 film Capote, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor. In this scene, Hoffman portrays Truman Capote as he visits Perry Smith and Richard Hickock prior to their execution for the 1959 murder of Herbert Clutter and his family, as chronicled in Capote's 1966 book In Cold Blood.
Martin Scorsese’s new documentary about the New York Review of Books will be shown as a work-in-progress at Berlin Film Festival’s Berlinale; Rivka Galchen and Pankaj Mishra discuss the contemporary heirs of the innovative modernist James Joyce; Apple could face $840 million in antitrust claims as a result of the e-book price-fixing trial; and other news.
"How lovely it is to write with all these vowels." The latest short film from Motionpoems features Robert Bly's poem "The Watcher of Vowels," with design and animation by Matt Van Ekeren.
J. K. Rowling has filed a libel lawsuit against the Daily Mail; Amazon announced its net sales increased 22 percent in 2013; classicist Dirk Obbink discovered two unknown poems by Sappho; and other news.
This trailer for Rachel Cantor's debut novel, A Highly Unlikely Scenario: Or, A Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World, published in January by Melville House, features illustrations and animation by Claire Kelley and Paul Bommer and music by Jerome Kitke's Mad Coyote Madly Sings (Peer International Corp). Listen to an excerpt of the book, read by the author, on our Poets & Writers podcast.
