I might not have read a single truly funny novel that year if my friend hadn’t stopped by my Los Angeles porch one afternoon carrying an out-of-print copy of Robert Plunket’s comic masterpiece, My Search for Warren Harding . We were in the worst of days—the depths of the pre-vaccine pandemic—and our world was on […]
I remember being holed up in my room as the world around me went into a deep slumber; this was early 2020, and the pandemic was reaching our doorsteps. I spent my time in solitude, rediscovering that side of me that had always been enamored with poetry. The highest form of literature, as many call […]
Sometimes I hear teachers and students talk about poetry as if the only purpose for writing a poem is to bare your soul, to go deep and dark; this illuminates another reason why poetry can be such an uncomfortable genre for teachers and students to approach in class. “I just feel funny asking kids to […]
Two new graphic novels, “Bea Wolf” and “Mulysses,” are mash-ups many times over. Both use words and images. Both are designed for children and adults. Both borrow elements from famously complicated stories: “Bea Wolf” picks up verbal schemes and plot points from “Beowulf”; “Mulysses” plays on the deadpan humor of “Moby-Dick” and the Cyclops section […]
April is National Poetry Month and if you’re looking for a way to connect with your emotions, unlock vulnerability, and process through some of the big feelings that we are all undoubtedly feeling these days, poetry is a great way to do so. Poetry can feel intimidating to a lot of people because of how […]
Swearingen’s reading will take place on Thursday, April 6th, at 6 p.m. in the Metzgar Center. It is free and open to the public. Theodore Wolf (TW) : Why do you write? What started you on your writing journey, and why do you write fiction and short stories specifically? Rachel Swearingen (RS) : I’m at […]
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Dede Fox, left, Montgomery County’s Former Poet Laureate and a writer for Writers in the Schools, works with sisters Dara and Rina on writing a short poem as they undergo their treatments at the Texas Children’s Hospital Friday, March 24, 2023 in The Woodlands. […]
A dozen people gathered on the second floor of the Ludington Area Center for the Arts for a recent Ludington Writers meeting. On the second and fourth Tuesday of the month, the Ludington Writers group transforms the solitary act of writing into a team effort. Ludington Writers is a nonprofit that aims to support a […]
It’s Tuesday again, and a lot of fascinating new books are out today. Here are a few to consider picking up. * Stephanie Marie Thornton, Her Lost Words: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley (Berkeley) “Thornton writes lyrically about the two Marys, and readers will sympathize, deeply, with their struggles to find their […]
In Brenda Shaughnessy’s collection “Tanya,” the self is fluid and love is “timelessness itself.” Credit…Gina Guasch Team TANYA: Poems, by Brenda Shaughnessy Attempt to ferret out the origins of the name “Tanya,” and you’ll find yourself awash in contradiction. A Russian name, it’s a diminutive of “Tatiana,” one source declares. Another insists the name is […]
