There are the stories and books that we simply read and cherish, and then there are those that we cannot stop thinking about, can quote verbatim, and find ourselves returning to. Why certain works transcend into the indelible is a mystery but we recognize it when it happens. For writers, these works become touchstones to […]
After publishing my first novel Catalina I spiraled into strange despair. Writing, for me, had always been about connection, yet I felt both disconnected from what I’d written and by how it was being received. Had I written a noir? I hadn’t set out to. Was my protagonist unlikeable? I liked her—and no, she wasn’t […]
Disengagement isn’t the solution The Last Screenwriter was boycotted for using AI (The Last Screenwriter) “This machine can produce a 5,000-word story, all typed and ready for despatch, in 30 seconds. How can the writers compete with that?” So asks Roald Dahl in his short story The Great Automatic Grammatizator , published in 1953. The […]
Is your life on the path you want it to be? Writing your own eulogy can bring clarity. | Jure Gasparic As we settle into our fall routines , there is one suggestion that can help us stay on our chosen life course: It’s time for you to write your own eulogy. I don’t mean […]
Credit…Dadu Shin I was terrified the first time I had to pick up the phone to call Edna O’Brien at her house in London. I pictured a grande dame in a Georgian manse. At the time, the mid-90s, I was a 28-year-old senior publicist in the publishing business, working for Dutton and its paperback line, […]
(Image credit: Paramount+) I think Doug Jones ‘ role as Saru in Star Trek: Discovery is one of the best things he’s done in his career, so imagine my disappointment when I saw him absent for a chunk of what would be the show’s final season . The Kelpien was promoted off the ship to […]
A bulletin board compiled of scrapped newspapers on the wall in the English and Creative Writing Department on the fifth floor of the 33 E. Ida B. Wells Drive building on Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024. “Foundations of 21st Century Writing” is now the only required English course for first-year students. In previous years, both “Writing […]
At the beginning of “The Spirit of the Beehive” (1973), Víctor Erice’s sublime first feature, a travelling projectionist arrives at a remote Castilian village, bearing a print of James Whale’s “Frankenstein.” It’s 1940, not long after the end of the Spanish Civil War, and the townsfolk, eager for entertainment, are soon transfixed by this sad, […]
This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter— sign up here . I’m not great with technology. I find no sensory pleasure in screens. I’m a person who prefers to roll down the window of the car with that little handle. (I drove a 1986 Ford Escort until the paint flaked off, and […]
From “Hekla & Laki.”Credit…Marine Schneider Children’s Books Two dreamlike picture books explore the ennui particular to the colossus. From “Hekla & Laki.”Credit…Marine Schneider Dave Eggers is the author, most recently, of the picture book “Soren’s Seventh Song” and the Newbery Medal-winning novel “The Eyes & the Impossible.” Aug. 16, 2024 When I was 8 years […]
