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Pick an overlooked, everyday object—a scarf, a carton of strawberries, a snow globe—and write eight different scenes or vignettes in which that object appears centrally. Have each scene take place in a different location and have the characters interact with the object in various ways.
This video, produced by AARP last year, takes a look at the life of celebrated novelist Carlos Fuentes, who died on Tuesday in Mexico City. He was eighty-three. Fuentes was the author of more than twenty books, including the novel Destiny and Desire, which was translated by Edith Grossman and published by Random House last January.
If you were unable to attend Barney Rosset's memorial at Cooper Union's Great Hall in New York City last week, Evergreen Review has posted remembrances; the New Yorker has introduced Page-Turner, a new daily books blog; Alice Bolin visits the Montana grave of poet Richard Hugo; and other news.
This short film, starring comedian and author Mike Birbiglia and "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross, was part of last week's live "This American Life" show that was seen in movie theaters across the country. Birbiglia's 2010 book, Sleepwalk With Me and Other Painfully True Stories, was made into a movie that will be released by IFC Films this fall.
Make a list of commonly used phrases or idioms (e.g. “don't let the cat out of the bag,” “beat a dead horse,” “no strings attached”). Choose one or two and examine them closely, particularly their literal meaning. Write a poem in which at least one line attempts to reveal the strangeness of a commonly used idiom. Read Dora Malech’s “Love Poem” for inspiration.
In Moscow, thousands took to the streets to walk with a group of writers who organized a protest against government efforts to discourage public gatherings; Steve Almond looks at the Washington Post's Mitt Romney bullying story through the eyes of his adolescent self; Lisa Cholodenko is slated to direct adaptations of Tom Perrota's The Abstinence Teacher and Cheryl Strayed's Wild; and other news.
"I think if people knew how hard we worked, they would pay us more." Enjoy the first tongue-in-cheek episode of A Writer's Life With Susan Juby.
The Associated Press reported earlier today that short story writer Charles Baxter has been awarded the 2012 Rea Award for the Short Story, an honor that includes a prize of thirty thousand dollars. Given annually to recognize a writer's body of work, the Rea Award has been given in the past to writers such as Andre Dubus, Grace Paley, Eudora Welty, and Tobias Wolff.
A statement by the prize judges praised Baxter's "original mind and ironic wit" and "acute feeling for the landscape of marriage, childhood, and art." Baxter's most recent story collection is Gryphon (Pantheon Books, 2011). He has also authored several novels and books on craft, including Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction (Graywolf Press, 2008).
In the video below, Baxter discusses what brought him back to the short story after he published five novels, and how "to get a sense of wonder into a short story" in the modern age.
Radio Free Europe explains how an obscure nineteenth-century Kazakh poet, Abai, has become an unlikely symbol of the protests opposing Putin's return to power in Russia; Forbes features Jeff Mayersohn, the person who saved Harvard Bookstore from oblivion; the Guardian reports that the mysterious lover Federico García Lorca directed his sonnets has been revealed; and other news.
