Category Archives: Blog

The Greatest Novels of the Millennium: A Work in Progress

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Ellen Akins

Interesting to see how BBC Culture‘s list of the “12 Greatest Novels of the Millennium (So Far)“–compiled from lists submitted by “several dozen book critics” compares with the list(s) the people at The Millions (“experts” v. “readers”) came up with at … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog, Newsiness | Tagged BBC Culture, Best Novels, Greatest Novels of the Millennium, The Millions | Comments Off

Tales Retold: Something Old, Something New

Posted on January 21, 2015 by Ellen Akins

Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue On the persistence of fairy tales in what we read & what we write In thinking about how to talk about drawing on sources from deep in our cultural history and … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog, Writing Notes | Tagged Angela Carter, Bettleheim, Bluebeard, Borges, Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, fairy tales, Freud, Italo Calvino, Jack Zipes, Jean Thompson, John Barth, Kate Bernheimer, Laura Miller, Marina Warner, Max Luthi, plots in fiction, Repetition Compulsion, Rosemary Moore, Shuli Barzilai. Neil Gaiman, Terri Windling, The Bloody Chamber, The Literature of Exhaustion, The Literature of Replenishment, Your Secret's Safe with Me | Comments Off

Olivia McCannon, exactly her own length

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Ellen Akins

Olivia McCannon read in the Buttery at Fairleigh Dickinson’s Wroxton College, in Wroxton, England. “‘C’o!”: The newspaper seller’s call echos through “Liverpool Echo,” the poem that opens her collection, “Exactly My Own Length,” its title from a letter from Wordsworth … Continue reading →

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Forgetfulness (the lie that makes life bearable), by Ward Just

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Ellen Akins

I recently finished reading a book by Ward Just, Forgetfulness, which reminded me so forcefully of my friend, the writer Thomas E. Kennedy, that I had it sent to him, and wrote a note about it, most of which I’ll … Continue reading →

Posted in All, Blog | Tagged dialogue in fiction, Forgetfulness, lebensluge, Malerie Willens, Thomas Kennedy, torture, Ward Just | Comments Off

Fear & Loathing in 2014 America

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Ellen Akins

As “further evidence of the fade of the long-held idea of the American Dream,” Washington Post’s “The Fix’s” Chris Cillizza cites a new New York Times poll finding that 64% of respondents said they believed people could be born poor, … Continue reading →

Posted in All, Blog | Tagged American Dream, Chris Cillizza, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S Thompson | Comments Off