Essay… Reconsidering Charles Wright 7 May 201314 May 2017 - Photo via nytimes.com When asked about his childhood in a 1964 interview, the writer James Baldwin noted the importance of libraries in his development. “I finally read my way…
Commonplace… Commonplace #5 1 Jul 20171 Jul 2017 What Those Women Knew To remember those feelings is to create them, to invite them to enter the body and to narrate their materiality, to image them to silent music…
Lists… What I’m Reading: Writer Brin-Jonathan Butler 27 Jun 201727 Jun 2017 Photo by Troy Turi, via https://us.macmillan.com/author/brinjonathanbutler/ In his essay “Homecoming,” the Hungarian writer Péter Nádas explores the idea of an individual’s natural language, a sort of default lens on the world.…
Recommended June: Read Your Caius Aquilla by John Andrew Fredrick 7 Jun 20177 Jun 2017 It’s said that a writer tells you how to a read a book with the opening lines. John Andrew Fredrick’s new novel, Your Caius Aquilla, isn’t shy about issuing those…
Interviews elsewhere… More from Helen Garner 30 May 201730 May 2017 - Photo via goodreads.com I’ve written about Helen Garner’s work on a couple of previous occasions, and my interview with her for The Millions ran recently. As is the case…
Commonplace… Commonplace #4 26 May 201726 May 2017 He said an intellectual falling-out-of-love was no less traumatic than the extinction of a sexual fire. - Darryl Pinckney, Black Deutschland photo via www.amazon.com
Commonplace… Commonplace #3 25 May 201725 May 2017 Efire So stand, and do not turn: your island round you, offering, indifferent, to sea-worn eyes, its stone-dykes cracked and flowered with wild hydrangea, its lily-banks. Look cold but…
Recommended Commonplace #2 22 May 201722 May 2017 Madame’s letter, and her books, were put into Boy’s shoebox to join his collection of letters and photographs. In fact he couldn’t get them all in, and he acquired a…
Interviews elsewhere… A Moment of Grace – An Interview with Helen Garner for The Millions 22 May 2017 Image via Text Publishing My interview with Helen Garner is up and running at The Millions. Thanks to Lydia Kiesling for working with me on getting it shipshape for print.…
Lists… What I’m Reading: Singer-Songwriter Mark Kozelek (or Sun Kil Moon, if you prefer) 11 May 201716 May 2017 - Photo courtesy of Caldo Verde Records Maybe the most convincing evidence of Mark Kozelek as a boxing fan, I mean the tried and true variety, is not that…
Commonplace… Commonplace #1 11 May 201713 May 2017 "Did you ever have those days when everything stood still, no forward motion? Those are the days when the past catches up with you. You have to stand still to…