For Leo Bersani: On His 90th Birthday

By | April 16, 2021
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Guest post by Mikko Tuhkanen A dual orientation in Leo Bersani’s thought never fails to make me tremble, for in it I think I recognize something indisputably true. On the one hand, Bersani repeatedly attends to the unavoidability of aggression in our encounters with the world: we are inhabited, he suggests,by an “intractable,” because constitutive, hatred of otherness. On the other, all such murderous impulses are supplemented by the logic of what Bersani, echoing Charles Baudelaire, calls “correspondence of… Read More »

Why we are addicted to narrative?

By | February 25, 2021
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From government briefings to quirky “human interest” stories and double-blind Pub Med studies, narrative in all its multifarious forms is what we resort to, promising in various measure, consolation and comprehension. But we rarely ask why. Why we are addicted to narrative in the first place. Why our minds work this way.

Ben Okri, post-publication reflections, and synchronicity

By | February 10, 2021
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Having recently been alerted by my daughter via WhatsApp to David Wilcock’s The Synchronicity Key, blow me down if I didn’t experience my very own synchronistic event. In my initial blog, I had referred to myself as ‘something of an undercover agent investigating the writings of fellow African, Ben Okri’, the thrilling upshot of which… Read More »

How to draw a comic when you already have the story

By | January 26, 2021
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Guest post by Chris Gavaler and Leigh Ann Beavers The below is an excerpt from Creating Comics, part of Bloomsbury’s series of Writers’ Guides and Anthologies. Begin with story events and let them guide page arrangement. When an artist receives a script from a collaborating writer, the process emphasizes story. Standard scripts divide page content… Read More »

What is tone?

By | January 7, 2021
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Guest post by Judith Roof The below is an excerpt of the preface from Tone by Judith Roof Key Tone Tone  Def:  Etymology  mid-14c.,  “musical  sound  or  note,”  from  Old  French  ton  “musical  sound,  speech,  words”  (13c.)  and directly from Latin tonus “a sound, tone, accent,” literally “stretching”  (in  Medieval  Latin,  a  term  peculiar  to … Read More »

Brandon Sanderson’s Fantasy Worlds

By | December 19, 2020
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Guest post by Ritwick Bhattacharjee In his rather captivating introduction to Maurice Blanchot’s Aminadab, Jean Paul Sartre writes: “So long as it was thought possible to escape the conditions of human existence through asceticism, mysticism, metaphysical disciplines or the practice of poetry, fantasy was called upon to fulfil a very definite function. It manifested our… Read More »

Shirley Jackson and “Safer at Home”

By | December 14, 2020
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Guest post by Jill E. Anderson December 14, 2020 would have been Shirley Jackson’s 104th birthday, and for those of us in the U.S., this day also marks about six months under some version of a forced quarantine. A thought has crossed my mind a number of times that time: what would Shirley Jackson have… Read More »

Happy Birthday, Willa Cather!

By | December 7, 2020
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Photo of Willa Cather

Guest post by Michelle E. Moore  The exceptionally prolific writer Willa Cather was born on December 7, 1873 in Gore, Virginia. Her literary work blends fiction with documentary while spanning vast distances across geographies, relationships, and time. Her personal papers document a lifetime of relationships kept afloat by near constant letter writing, sometimes conducted as she traveled long distances by rail to visit friends and… Read More »

Learning and Connecting with Lili Elbe

By | November 18, 2020
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Guest post by Sabine Meyer Sometimes, someone that has been incredibly important to you, that has penetrated your very way of thinking and being becomes an indispensable thread of your own fabric, sneaking back into your life, again and again, reminding you of the role they play in your never-ending evolution. To me, Lili Ilse… Read More »