The love of poetry comes early. We learn language most readily in the sing-song meter of rhyme and scan. Poetry...
It was compelling for the young lesbian-feminist reporter that I was, being in a country run by a woman. As a feminist, I wanted to experience that difference–having a woman in charge. That constancy of presence of Thatcher’s was part of the difference, the intensity with which she seized power was another. Read More
Award-winning novelist and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala died April 3 in New York from complications of pulmonary disease. She was...
It’s always a loss when the great die. It’s less of a loss when they die leaving so much of themselves behind. Vidal lived life more fully than most people can ever envision. Despite his assertion of his icy bastardliness as a person, his work shines and pivots, sparkles and entrances. Read More
He didn’t obfuscate with his sci-fi and fantasy stories–he was always detailing the complexities of the interior life of his characters within the context of a vivid cultural and physical landscape, regardless of where those characters were situated. And in his lush, lyrical descriptions the marginal became central. Read More
Gate-keeping is both an exquisite art and a bullying tactic. The reality is, however, that editors can create writing sensations–and trends–whenever they want to. Read More
Young adult fiction has come a ways since the blonde-haired, blue-eyed yesterdays of Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley High and the...
