“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them; women are afraid that men will kill them.”–Margaret Atwood Glossophobia: the fear of public speaking. It’s derived from the Greek word glōssa, or tongue. This is the closest phobia I can find to “fear of speaking up.” I’m not talking about eleventh grade speech and debate, imagining your audience in their underwear. I’m talking about the fear every woman has experienced when she knows something wrong has happened but she’s […]
What We Talk About When We Talk About Titles
I chose this title for a reason. For non-Raymond Carver fans, the “What We Talk About” likely sounds familiar. It is an oft-copied phrase, from Nathan Englander’s 2012 short story collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank to the number of recent headlines covering everything from gun control to GMOs. For readers of Carver’s 1981 story collection, this article’s title has hopefully provoked a response, even if it’s ire over another turn of this well-worn phrase. […]
“One Relieves the Other”: Eileen Myles on Second Novels, Poet’s Novels, and Punctuation
This past year, after seeing that authors often receive less attention for their sophomore novels, Slate teamed up with the Whiting Foundation to create a new literary prize, The Slate/Whiting Second Novel List. Five authors and their second novels were named to this list, among them revolutionary and experimental poet Eileen Myles and her novel Inferno. In an essay describing why Inferno was included in the list, writer and editor Sasha Weiss noted, “It will teach you that yearning has […]
Carver’s Country
Ask anyone to name the most literary city in Washington State, and nine times out of ten they’ll choose Seattle, an emerald city sparkling with renown bookstores (Elliott Bay, Third Place Books), coffee shops (Caffe Vita, Vivace), and a literary center that draws famous writers from around the country for popular reading series (Richard Hugo House). The tenth person will likely choose one of the West Side’s small literary havens like Port Townsend, home to poetry publisher Copper Canyon Press […]