Memoir reveals gay writer’s struggle with homelessness, rape
‘A Place Called Home: A Memoir’ By David Ambroz c. 2022, Legacy Lit/Hachette $30/384 pages For David Ambroz, 42, author of the stunning new memoir “A Place Called Home,” one of his childhood recollections is of himself and his siblings walking with Mary, their mother, on a freezing Christmas morning in New York City. Today, […]
Novelist Ian McEwan: Writing is “a way of being”
“A secret, I think, can be fatal,” said acclaimed novelist Ian McEwan. “She died with her secret intact.” That secret McEwan is talking about was a personal one held by his mother: “She would give birth to a baby boy, and she gave that child away. The moment she gave that child away, I think […]
Kirk Thatcher Talks ‘Star Trek IV,’ Working With Leonard Nimoy, and Getting to Write Scotty’s Computer Joke
Multihyphenate Kirk Thatcher has been involved with a vast range of iconic movies and television over the past 40 years. From his first job, on Star Wars: Return of the Jedi no less, Thatcher has been crafting beloved stories that reach into all corners of fandom as a writer, director, producer, actor, and visual effects […]
How to Tell If You Grew Up in a Cult
Daniella Mestyanek Young’s memoir “Uncultured” explores the parallels between her childhood in the Children of God and her time serving in the U.S. army The first chapter of Daniella Mestyanek Young’s memoir Uncultured opens with a screech: It is 1993 and Mestyanek Young—then 5 years old—is inside a commune in Brazil, standing at the back […]
A Summary and Analysis of Adrienne Rich’s ‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’
‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’ is a 1951 poem by the American poet Adrienne Rich (1929-2012), published in her first poetry collection, A Change of World , which was published while the precocious Rich was still in her early twenties. Rich was known for her feminist writings as well as her poetry, and this fact is relevant […]
Woman finds way to honor slain friends by writing children’s book
Madi Taylor never planned to be an author, but when her friends, Grant and Mary Drayton Godbee, died in a tragic accident, her grief led her to write a story of hope. You’ve reached subscriber exclusive content. Subscribe now for immediate access. Or, log in if you’re a subscriber. Click here to view original web […]
Harvard Authors Spotlight: Nadia Colburn on Poetic Process and Inter-Being
Nadia Colburn ’95 recently sat down with The Harvard Crimson to discuss her holistic approach to writing. It is easy to confine writing to a highly formalized art form, entered through academia, confined to a particular realm of education. Nadia Colburn ’95, a poet, teacher, and writing coach currently based in Cambridge, argues for a […]
Molly Sentell Haile ’94 on the Art of the Short Story and Healing Through Writing
Sentelle Haile’s fiction has appeared in Jabberwock Review and Cream City Review and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her nonfiction has appeared in Oxford American and O. Henry Magazine and has received an honorable mention in The Best American Nonrequired Reading . She teaches creative writing classes for people with cancer, survivors and […]
How to Join a TikTok Book Club
I’m one of those reader types who always wanted to join in on book clubs, but never has enough willing friends or social energy to actually up and join one. Especially not one in person. What if my thoughts on the book are nonsense? What if no one shows up and it’s just me, sitting […]
What’s an En Dash? (And How to Use it Correctly)
Let’s get to know the en dash . An en dash is one of the special punctuation marks that most people see all the time, but rarely think about how to use correctly. Fun fact : the reason the en and em dashes have those names are because of their lengths. An em dash is […]