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In the United Kingdom, thieves robbed Brontë Chapel, where the Brontë sisters were baptized; Arthur Krystal explores the sometimes-heated discussion concerning genre and literary fiction; literary agent Janet Reid offers advice to writers interested in self-publishing.
He should probably stick to acting. Watch Tom Hanks perform his poem about the 1990s sitcom "Full House" on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon."
One of the most dangerous pitfalls of creative nonfiction can be chronology, and some of the best essays are written in a nonlinear fashion. Think of a story that you know by heart--maybe a memory from your childhood, of finding first love, or of the birth of a child--and try to retell it without using typical chronologically. Start from the end and work your way back, or alternate between scenes of present and past. The result should be an essay that keeps the reader always moving but never quite sure of what comes next.
Using magazine clippings; photographs; found or created notes, letters, and postcards; and other items, construct a story from ephemera. Put the items in box and add to it as the week goes on. When you feel that you've compiled enough, write the story relying on the ephemera as a guide.
Barnes & Noble's credit card readers have been hacked in stores across the country; Amazon announces the Japanese Kindle; and Matthew Dickman calls on poetry lovers to send their favorite books to non-poetry readers during October; and other news.
Based on the best-selling novel by David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas explores how the actions and consequences of individual lives impact one another throughout the past, the present, and the future. Directed by Tom Tykwer and Andy Wachowski, starring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, and Hugh Grant, the movie opens in theaters on Friday.
A new recording of Flannery O’Connor has surfaced; Edan Lepucki examines the defining characteristics of the literary fiction genre; the Guardian explains how to write the first draft of a novel in one month, and other news.
Find a text that is completely unrelated to what you normally read—a how-to manual, a 1950s interior design book, an old encyclopedia, a white paper on social media— and use it as the source of an erasure poem. Read through several pages and underline words and phrases that appeal to you and that relate to each other. Using a marker or Wite-Out, begin to delete the words around those you underlined, leaving words and phrases that you might want to use. Keep deleting the extra language, working to construct poetic lines with the words you’ve chosen to keep.
Check out Ray Bradbury matching wits with Groucho Marx as a contestant on "You Bet Your Life" in 1955.
Allan Gurganus writes of first meeting his teacher and friend John Cheever; David Carr profiles millionaire magazine publisher Felix Dennis, who is also a best-selling poet; Boris Kachka visits with author Tom Wolfe to discuss Wolfe's new novel, Back to Blood; and other news.
