…Image: Breaking Copy Breaking Copy highlights these ads, by the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, that satirize anti-drug PSAs: Image: Breaking Copy I can see an MFA program putting together its own series of these ads: Anita Desai: “Where did you learn to write stories? Who taught you how to do this stuff?” Kiran Desai: “You, all right? I learned it by watching you!” Ad campaign, anyone?…
…e he’s working to create the world’s first sentient computer. But when the computer becomes the reincarnation of his deceased father, everything Neill thought he knew about love, language, and family is put to the test in this funny, moving, and deeply ambitious novel. In August, I talked with Hutchins about his literary influences, the process of creating a character from a computer, and his own complicated relationship with technology. Scott Hut…
…if you have to support yourself and your family, time is short)—that age becomes simply one of the factors. On the other hand, worshipping writers for their youth or their sexy author photo seems an odd paradigm for an art form that is between reader and words on the page. Why care how cute the author is? How unwrinkled? How does this affect one’s relationship with reading? That said, I do have a prejudice. I believe all good books (whatever the g…
…th Florida and write from time to time. It’s dangerous for a civilian to become complacent and believe that we’re immune to what transpires overseas. I don’t presume to understand the complexities of that big American story. What I attempted to do is locate this one guy, William Gent, and work through the weight of guilt and responsibility that presses upon him. The wasps are those shadows—doubt, regret, and pain—that we all combat in one way or a…
…uate student in neuroscience at MIT, wonders on her blog Narrative and the Brain. Livia Blackburne …. the scientists used a brain scanner to see what regions lit up during the reading of a story. They watched the brains of volunteers as they read four short narrative passages. […] Motor neurons flashed when characters were grasping objects, and neurons involved in eye movement activated when characters were navigating their world. In summary then,…
…ee? Is that what you were aiming for? First of all, thanks. Those are high compliments coming from you. “Haunted” is certainly one of my favorites in the book. As for the gothic nature of “Haunted,” in fact, when I wrote that story I wasn’t consciously trying to write a gay story but to write a literary, non-sensationalist, non-cheesy ghost story. I just decided, and I don’t even remember why at this point, to make the character gay. And I didn’t…
…as seem original because they ARE to the reader. But for me, Fowles wasn’t new simply because I hadn’t read him before; he felt like a glimpse of the future more than the past—specifically, a glimpse of possibility. Not as an antidote for contemporary fiction (for it’s neither sick nor dying, let alone dead, thank you very much), but as an alternative. The openness in his language, the freedom in his style, felt so fresh and unique. On the one han…
…uaint or friendly.” As we bid farewell to the navigator, let us greet this new, compelling voice. I look forward to reading more of Zumas’s incisive prose, especially the more speculative elements of her work. In particular, I’d be interested to see the alternate/parallel/post-apocalyptic worlds of “Heart Sockets” and “Leopard Arms” developed further, perhaps even into novel-length narratives. Further Reading Leni Zumas (photo from Open City’s…
…eader if you read a single book in the previous year. In a given year, the latest Harry Potter or Twilight alone could account for a significant number of readers. The rise of digital culture in the past few years has thrown many of us writers into a tizzy too. Nicholas Carr told us, in The Shallows last year, that the medium through which we access information is far more influential in the long run than the content itself. The new medium—the Int…
