The woman behind one of Freud’s most influential case studies, writes Gabriel Brownstein, was not the straightforward success story of legend. THE SECRET MIND OF BERTHA PAPPENHEIM: The Woman Who Invented Freud’s Talking Cure, by Gabriel Brownstein Bertha Pappenheim stopped eating and sleeping. She lost her language and ability to move. Her eyes crossed and […]
When I was at the old Vic, I had a number of walk-ons and understudy roles—one of which was in Henry VIII with Sir John Gielgud, Harry Andrews and Dame Edith Evans. That was the production when they famously all dried on the first night. All of them—John, Harry and Edith—in that long scene between […]
Crafting a fantasy or science fiction world requires both creativity and structure, with a prerequisite care in its conception required if one wishes to succeed in suspending their readers’ disbelief. The essence of world-building lies not just in avoiding excessive exposition or sparse detail but in the foundational design itself. This is essential, for the […]
Another day, another literary scandal. Such is BookX in 2024. Buckle up, for today brings news of an especially strange case of dissembling, involving a fantasy author writing under a few different racial identities and a handful of pseudonyms. I’m sorry in advance if you were using your brain today for other things. The trouble […]
It is a wonderful thing to be told that the work to which you have devoted your time, energy and passion has found an audience that understands the difficulties and accomplishments of transforming a lifetime’s experience and struggles and making all that over into story. Story is how I understand life. My family’s struggles, the […]
In the past several months, Taylor Swift has become culturally ubiquitous in a way that feels nearly terrifying. Superstardom tends to turn normal people into cartoons, projections, gods, monsters. Swift has been inching toward some sort of tipping point for a while. The most recent catalyst was, in part, love: in the midst of her […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Little Shop of Horrors , the story is an unsettling tale about a parasitical species of plant which feeds upon the blood of a man who collects orchids. Perhaps a brief plot summary would be a wise place to begin. Summary ‘The Flowering of the Strange Orchid’ is about […]
Bitter Water Opera by Nicolette Polek IN THE PENULTIMATE scene of The Red Shoes (1948), a spotlight strikes the stage. A man presents his hand to a closed door. It opens; there is nothing inside. He spins, and the spotlight spins with him. He leaps, pirouettes, and raises his arms, the spotlight following just beyond […]
This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter— sign up here . On a Sunday in October, 2021, well into a second year of the pandemic, in the incipient stages of a new novel, I woke up to a total retinal detachment in my right eye. I describe the experience as palm branches […]
Seminary Co-op booksellers and friends have held a number of conversations with legendary bookseller Paul Yamazaki throughout the past two years, in the intoxicating stacks of City Lights, perambulating the streets of San Francisco, and over whiskey tumblers deep into the night. With Paul we’ve edited them into the format of one day and night’s […]
