Author Archives: Ellen Akins

Grief as a home

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Ellen Akins

I haven’t read the book, Kathleen Alcott’s novel Infinite Home, and this excerpt in Electric Literature‘s Recommended Reading is good, but what struck me was the opening of Catherine Lacey’s introduction: Grief as a home, or better … Continue reading →

Posted in All, Reading Notes | Tagged Catherine Lacey, Electric Literature, Grief, Infinite Home, Kathleen Alcott | Comments Off

Bellow, Bellow, Bellow

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Ellen Akins

Zachary Leader‘s The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune has just been published (by Cape in England, Knopf in the U.S.), giving a bevy of wonderful writers, critics, and pundits a chance to reflect on the colorful old … Continue reading →

Posted in Reading Notes | Tagged Allan Bloom, Andrew O'Hagan, Gary Shteyngart, Greg Bellow, James Wood, Louis Menand, Ravelstein, Saul Bellow, Saul Bellow's Heart, The Life of Saul Bellow, Zachary Leader | Comments Off

Jonathan Miller

Posted on May 6, 2015 by Ellen Akins

From a review of Kate Bassett’s biography of Jonathan Miller, who apparently sprang from the mind of Monty Python: As a Cambridge undergraduate he liked to turn heads by walking barefoot through the streets carrying a large marrow.

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Why great novels don’t get noticed now

Posted on May 6, 2015 by Ellen Akins

Why great novels don’t get noticed now Jane Davis’s interesting reflections on literary fiction on the Triskele Books blog steered me to this article in the (UK) Telegraph (14 March 2015), in which Gaby Wood wrote that, despite a raft … Continue reading →

Posted in All, Blog | Tagged Blunt Instrument, Chuck Palahniuk, Dangerous When Wet, Dear Thief, Electric Literature, Elisa Gabbert, Fred Venturini, Jamie Brickhouse, Jane Davis, Luck and literary success, Medium, Samantha Harvey, The Heart Does Not Grow Back | Comments Off

On Mentors, John Casey, Kurt Vonnegut, Peter Taylor

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Ellen Akins

Something now lost in the mists of memory made me think of Kurt Vonnegut, perhaps, oddly enough, a story just published in Narrative, “The Big Trip Up Yonder“–oddly, because when I tried to find a record of the incident that came to … Continue reading →

Posted in All, Blog, Reading Notes | Tagged John casey, kurt vonnegut, writing mentors | Comments Off