“A conversation is a journey, and what gives it value is fear.” So says Anne Carson. Exits Are is a…
How I Wrote Certain of My Books
[In which I elaborate on an earlier post, “Slow Writing?“] In thinking about my earlier contention that writing ought to…
Translating the Uncanny Valley
Terrific interview between Mark Polizzotti and Mark Ford about (re)translating Raymond Roussel’s Impressions of Africa and New Impressions…
Slow Writing?
Would that there were no other kind. Sara Levine, author of the fantastic Treasure Island!!!, was interviewed in the…
I Can Read for Miles and Miles: Field Report from the Moby-Dick Marathon
Last weekend I went to the Moby-Dick marathon, an annual event in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where much of the landlubbing…
The North American Innovation Crash of 1993
The Ombudsman of the Washington Post has this to say about “innovation”: “I’m wondering, and readers are too, whether…
A Year of Reading
I read 203 books in 2011, or, on average, a little more than one book every two days. You…
Acquiring the Superfluous
[Alexander Theroux’s essay “Theroux Metaphrastes” was published as an appendix to David R. Godine’s 1975 edition of Theroux’s 1972 novel,…
Pop-up Books: An Homage
Last week, as I was picking up some films from the library of my alma mater, the University of New…
Stanley Elkin, Ghosting Through Boston, Beautifully
A reminiscence of Stanley Elkin & a one-on-one workshop session I was lucky enough to have.