Before Geraldine DeRuiter first went viral in 2018 for her essay, “ I Made the Pizza Cinnamon Rolls from Mario Batali’s Sexual Misconduct Apology Letter ,” she felt well-known food publications never wanted her work. And then, she made the cinnamon rolls. From that moment on, DeRuiter was thrust into the culinary spotlight. She won […]
Photo of teacher writing at her desk Your students left for the bus, and your classroom is finally quiet. You straighten desks, scrape at the ground-up goldfish in the carpet, empty a remaining lunch box to head off the sour milk smell. That’s when you realize you’re not sure if you talked to the student […]
In 2016, Alex de Vries read somewhere that a single bitcoin transaction consumes as much energy as the average American household uses in a day. At the time, de Vries, who is Dutch, was working at a consulting firm. In his spare time, he wrote a blog, called Digiconomist, about the risks of investing in […]
I was excited when I RSVP’d. It would be a lovely way to end the tour, I thought, maybe even comforting— a balm for the months of nightly performances, all the new faces. I secretly love weddings despite the bitter hopelessness loudly knocking on the door to my temperamental heart. I get to dress up, […]
Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley “I CAN’T SEEM to find a moment alone with you.” These despairing words appear in a passage close to the end of Sloane Crosley’s latest book, Grief Is for People (2024). The memoir traces the best-selling essayist and novelist’s response to learning that her dear friend Russell Perreault, […]
Leslie Jamison’s new memoir Splinters follows the aftermath of divorce and the awakening of motherhood, but it explores desire more than it does any kind of death. Jamison wants to make meaning, to connect, to love, to feel, to mother, to write, and to revise her life endlessly. There are losses and grief along the […]
A new collection of AI-assisted writing assignments co-edited by University Writing Program lecturer Carly Schnitzler offers teachers practical ways to incorporate AI into their classrooms while setting ground rules for its use The ascendance of large language models like ChatGPT has all but wrought a collective existential crisis among writing instructors. Due to a rise […]
Erika De La Rosa was excited when she heard about the sweeping changes to the STAAR exam . “When they initially announced it, as an English teacher, it sounded like a fantastic idea because writing should be incorporated everywhere,” De La Rosa said. She teaches seventh grade in Houston ISD. Before last year, writing was […]
Screenshot from “Poor Things” I’ll give you a plot and you tell me which 2023 film I’m referring to: A wide-eyed waif who lives in a technicolor world gains sentience and leaves on an existential odyssey that exposes her to the inequalities of a modern society. If you answered Poor Things , you’re right. If […]
The Iowa Writers’ Workshop professor and recent New York Times bestselling author of “Martyr!” spoke with the DI about his recovery from addiction and his subsequent necessity of writing. Avi Lapchick , Arts Editor Ethan McLaughlin Kaveh Akbar speaks during a panel on Leslie Jamison’s newest novel, Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story, at Prairie […]
