From the Magazine
Why We Write: Going Back to Where It Was
After finding him paging through her diary, a mother confronts the ethical and emotional struggles of writing about her son’s traumatic brain injury.
Art Vs. Life: A Quarrel Between David Shields and Caleb Powell
What comes first—the human or the writer? David Shields and Caleb Powell discuss the origins and collaborative process behind the four-day argument about life and art that became their new book (and film), I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel.
More Ideas Faster: Writing With Abandon
A writer learns that letting go of the need for perfectionism and allowing the creative impulse to guide the mind fluidly and freely can revitalize the practice of writing.
Ferguson Public Library Sees Donations Spike, James Patterson Campaigns Against Reader Apathy, and More
PEN American Center’s Human Rights Day event; Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems reissued; poet Heather McHugh’s nonprofit; and other news.
Politics and Prose Bookstore Opens Satellite Locations, Lemony Snicket Gets a Netflix Deal, and More
The case against “book-dropping”; literary characters who never die; the often-elusive titling process; and other news.
The Written Image: Windows on the World
Artist and architect Matteo Pericoli pairs drawings of views from the desks of writers around the world with essays by those writers about where they write, what they see, and how their view informs their work
This Thing I Made: Letterpress Meets High Tech at the IPRC
Writers take bookmaking into their own hands at Portland, Oregon’s Independent Publishing Resource Center.
Coming Home to Writing: Exile and Literary Citizenship
Having left her home in Havana as a refugee at the age of three, an author explores the truth of what it means to be a writer in exile.
Where We Write: New York City Via Bavaria, Germany
Learning to inhabit a new country and language helps a German-born writer discover her voice and understand how that voice hinges on the place in which she lives.