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 »
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 »
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 »
Guest post by Adrian Osbourne Perhaps for many of us, particularly once beyond a certain age, birthdays provoke a mixture of happiness, as a day that celebrates our arrival into the world, and apprehension, for the passing of time and our inevitable exit. For Dylan Thomas, this antagonism proved a powerful source of literary inspiration. Thomas was born 106 years ago in Swansea, on 27thOctober 1914, and has… Read More »
Guest post by Vanessa Joosen Today is Philip Pullman’s 74th birthday and that seems like a good moment to reflect on the role that age has so far played in his career. Pullman made his debut in the early 1970s and has been a prolific and outspoken writer ever since. He is best known for his trilogy His Dark… Read More »
Guest post by Gerri Kimber I later undertook a PhD on Mansfield, and to date have written or edited over 30 volumes on her. Twelve years ago I helped to set up the international Katherine Mansfield Society, and was its Chair for ten of those years. All this because of a chance encounter with an old second-hand book in… Read More »
Guest post by Nate Mickelson Born October 12, 1944, the poet and activist Lewis MacAdams passed away in Los Angeles in April 2020 after a long illness. He was a champion of everyday people and an advocate for forging connections between the built and natural environments of the city. MacAdams served for thirty years as the director of Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR), a community organization he… Read More »
Guest post by Rosemary Alice Gray The publication of my monograph entitled, The Tough Alchemy of Ben Okri: The writer as conceptual artist fell about a week before my 80th birthday, auspiciously 20 August 2020. Since I discovered the works of Nigerian-born Londoner, Ben Okri (OBE), who has invested his lifeblood at the rock face of… Read More »
Based on a novel by the same name, Lovecraft Country is a drama-horror series set to premiere on HBO this weekend. The story will take you back to the 1950s as you follow Atticus Black (Jonathan Majors), his friend Letitia (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), and his Uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) through Jim Crow America in search of Atticus’s missing father (Michael Kenneth Williams). But as the characters embark on an unexpected road trip, they encounter a… Read More »