Author Archives: Ellen Akins

Quan Barry, “She Weeps Each Time You’re Born”

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Ellen Akins

Poet Quan Barry’s strangely luminous dark novel channels the history of Vietnam through the experience of a woman who hears the dead. I talked about it as a reflection on the post-apocalyptic present at The Millions and reviewed it in the Minneapolis … Continue reading →

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solicitude

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Ellen Akins

From today’s A.Word.A.Day: “solicitude” derives from the Latin word for whole (sollus). To be complete, one must care.

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Angela Woodward, Philip Graham

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Ellen Akins

Looking for a favorite story of mine, Philip Graham’s “I Dreamt About You Last Night,” from his collection The Art of the Knock, I found this interview Graham did in 2013 for Fiction Writers Review, with a writer I wasn’t … Continue reading →

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roots: bher- (to carry)

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Ellen Akins

One leads, but both carry . . . The Indo-European root of “opprobrium” (from Latin opprobrium (reproach), from ob- (against) + probrum (infamy, reproach)) bher– (to carry) is also the root of bear, birth, barrow, burden, fertile, transfer, offer, suffer, … Continue reading →

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David Lodge, authorial innocence

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Ellen Akins

In Quite a Good Time to Be Born: A Memoir 1935-1975 David Lodge says of writing in The Devil, The World, and the Flesh about a woman with a “history of sexual delinquency” who dies from foregoing an abortion that might have saved … Continue reading →

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