Suspend Your Disbelief

Essays

Essays |

The Enduring Magic of Stephanie Vaughn’s Sweet Talk

From the Archives: In 1990, Stephanie Vaughn published her debut collection of short fiction, Sweet Talk. Critical reception was overwhelmingly positive. A reviewer for Mother Jones Magazine wrote, “There is not a weak story in Sweet Talk and few are less than spectacular … Hers is a wise, touching, extraordinary voice—the sort rarely achieved at the end of a gifted career, let alone at the beginning.” To date, Vaughn’s first book has also been the only one her adoring fans have seen.


Essays |

Creative Defiance

From the Archives: What do the 2011 Japanese Tsunami, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and one family’s personal heartbreak have in common? For Ellen Prentiss Campbell, the answer lies in Pearl S. Buck’s 1948 young adult novel, The Big Wave, and the individual acts of creative defiance that help survivors not only carry on, but value life’s beauty more highly because they know it will not last.


Essays |

On Literary References

Countless writers aspire to contribute something lasting to literature. We labor over drafts. We seek innovative forms. We push ourselves to evoke particularities in tone, plot, character, circumstance, and word choice. Yet in these various pursuits, we might overlook what also endures: literary references.