Online Exclusives
Michelle Barker’s Writing Space
I’m fortunate to have a second bedroom in my apartment that I recently turned into an office space. I write in many different genres, but I’m a novelist at heart. For years, I dreamed of having a wall that looked like Michael Scofield’s wall in the TV series Prison Break—covered in sticky notes and photographs […]
What is John Vardon Reading?
When it comes to the reading of new books, and and I’m happy to say that the opportunity comes for me much more frequently in retirement, my choice ( mostly literary) is governed by the love of specific authors, curiosity aroused by reading and conversations with friends, a certain degree of serendipity, or a combination […]
What is Matthew Hollett Reading?
I first encountered the work of Irish writer and artist Sara Baume through a friend who recommended her novel A Line Made By Walking. The title immediately intrigued me – it’s plucked from an artwork by British artist Richard Long, who in 1967 walked back and forth across a field until his path was well-trod […]
Finding the Form with Karen Lee
What does it mean to silence a child? When we enact oppression on other people, it lives in us too. What did it cost Miss Hirabayashi? What would the river say to you?
What is Martha Batiz Reading?
Reading time is precious to me, as during the academic year I seldom find the chance to read anything besides my (many) students’ work. I wish I had the energy to devour books during these months at the same pace that I do during the summer, but if I have learned something since I migrated […]
Finding the Form with Noriko Hoshino
I often start writing about the things or the people I know. Occasionally it works, but I usually end up producing lame stories. I suck at writing autobiographical stories or something that is related to my family because I tend to make me look like the nicest person on the planet living with an ideal […]
What is J.R. Patterson Reading?
On a recent journey through Morocco, I read André Gide’s short novel Strait is the Gate. The story of two adolescents, Jerome and Alissa, on the Normandy coast falling in love and failing to court one another was at odds with my surroundings—dirty souks, rattling trains, the call of the muezzin. The discord was comforting; […]
Finding the Form with Jessica Moore
One day in the second lockdown winter, when my twins were nearly three, I was walking to the office – my office is a small room in a brutish 70s building downtown, with very thick walls and one window that looks out onto a tree and a patch of sky. It takes me about an […]
Jamaluddin Aram’s Writing Space
I once met Colm Tóibín and asked if living in Spain helped with writing Homage to Barcelona. No, he said, there are so many problems in the world that the last thing people need is a writer complain he can’t write. Give me a pair of headphones, he said and pointed at a table in […]
What is Joe Davies Reading?
I’m a very poor reader these days. I’m slow about it and have several books on the go, including the King James Bible, which I’ve never read and feel as though I ought to have a better sense of. But the book that’s currently making the biggest impression on me is a collection of poetry […]