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Black and white headshot of author Amy Shearn

Amy Shearn

Amy Shearn is the author of the novels Unseen City (forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2020), The Mermaid of Brooklyn, and How Far Is the Ocean from Here, as well as the introduction to the novella The Little Bastard. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Real Simple, Martha Stewart Living, Coastal Living, Poets & Writers, and on the websites Slate, Oprah, The Rumpus, The Millions, Electric Literature, Catapult, and elsewhere.

Road Dahl

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Roald Dahl

What don't you know about the famous children's book author?
V.S. Naipaul

V.S. Naipaul’s Defense of Civilization

As a public figure, V.S. Naipaul is often outrageous, but his 30+ books speak eloquently in defense of civilization. 
Charlotte's Web

“What’s a life, anyway?” Remembering E. B. White

Reading Charlotte’s Web is the first time many bookworms feel real sadness for pretend characters.
Hemingway and friends

The Real Story Behind Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises

Ernest Hemingway's famous, career-launching debut novel, The Sun Also Rises, was so autobiographical, it was essentially gossipy reportage.
The word Ulysses in white on a blue background

A Bloomsday Remembrance of James Joyce

June 16th is Bloomsday, the day on which James Joyce's sprawling Modernist novel Ulysses takes place. Celebrate literature, Dublin, and, well, pubs!
The artist retreat, Byrdcliffe

The Utopian Roots of the Artists’ Retreat

The modern artist's retreat has roots in industrial-era utopian communes.
Geek Love

Geek Love: Our Modern Monster Story

The writer Katherine Dunn died last week at age 70. Anyone who ever felt like an outsider found a friend in her 1989 novel Geek Love.
Covers of books by Virginia Woolf

“What a lark! What a plunge!”: Celebrating Mrs. Dalloway

Mrs. Dalloway was published on May 14, 1925. We look at the book 90+ years on.
A mother and daughter sitting in the living room together.

The One Thing Parents Really Need

The prologue of Catherine Newman’s new parenting memoir Catastrophic Happiness: Finding Joy in Childhood’s Messy Years, evocatively called ...
David Wojnarowicz Smoking, 1981 Peter Hujar © 1987 The Peter Hujar Archive LLC; Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

The Lonely City: What Past Artists Tell Us About the Present

What can we learn from Lonely City artists like David Wojnarowicz in our age of hyper-connectivity?
Anne's Tablet (1916) by William Ordway Partridge to honor Constance Fenimore Woolson, Mackinac Island, Michigan.

The Submerged Sexuality of Constance Fenimore Woolson’s Fiction

Constance Fenimore Woolson was a renown American Realist writer in her day, but has since almost disappeared. Two new books attempt to change that. 
Luise Adelgunde Victoria Gottsched

Traduttore, Traditore: Is Translation Ever Really Possible?

Translator, traitor, goes the Italian expression, although something may be lost in the translation.
Salaam Reads

The Importance of Publishing Muslim-Themed Children’s Books

Simon & Schuster has established a new imprint of children's books geared towards publishing Muslim characters and stories.
Green Island: A novel by Shawna Yang Ryan

“Green Island” Sheds Light on Taiwan’s Tumultuous Past

Shawna Yang Ryan's "Green Island," explores the 2-28 massacre, in which tens of thousands of Taiwanese were killed by Kuomintang troops in 1947. 
The Firebrand and the First Lady Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice By Patricia Bell-Scott

Pauli Murray: Eleanor Roosevelt’s Brilliant (Black, Feminist, Queer, Trailblazing) Friend

Patricia Bell-Scott's new book explores the friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Pauli Murray, the poet and civil rights activist. 
The Portable Veblen, by Elizabeth McKenzie

How Life in the Age of Conspicuous Consumption Can Drive You Nuts

Elizabeth McKenzie's "The Portable Veblen" concerns a character named Veblen, a woman who feels keenly the ideas of the great economist.  
Abriel Thomas, a cousin of Emmett Till, holds a triptych showing childhood photos of Till in his Chicago home Monday, May 10, 2004, after news that federal authorities are reopening the investigation into the 14-year-old's 1955 race-motivated murder. "I wish Mamie could have been here," Thomas said. "It was the only thing she ever wanted out of life _ a little bit of justice." (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Harper Lee and #BlackLivesMatter

Lee's novel has been criticized for its depictions of race, but the questions it raised continue to resonate in an America where racial animus persists. 
Poor Your Soul by Mira Ptacin

Mourning the Baby That Never Was

In Mira Ptacin's, Poor Your Soul, the question is: How does one grieve a baby that never was? These resources may help us know. 
Cover of The Vegetarian

The Lasting Stain of Political Violence: Han Kang’s The Vegetarian

Providing some historical context to Han King's The Vegetarian. 
Angry housewife

The Many Lives of the Angry Housewife

The housewife novel is having a comeback, continuing the tradition of exploring domesticity and self-hood in fiction. 
Illustration of a girl reading.

#1000BlackGirlBooks and the Importance of Diversity in Children’s Literature

The importance of diversity in children's literature, especially for young children of color. 
On July 17, 1955, Argonne's BORAX III reactor provided all the electricity for Arco, Idaho, the first time any community's electricity was provided entirely by nuclear energy.

What Did Idaho Have to Do With the Cold War?

The real life history behind the 1961 nuclear accident fictionalized in Andria Williams' The Longest Night.
Samuel Smiles by Sir George Reid, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo

Before KonMari and NotSorry, There Was the Samuel Smiles’ Guide to Self Help

Samuel Smiles' 1859 book, Self Help, offered a groundbreaking approach to self improvement.
Neighborhood Gardens

Neighborhood Gardens: A Housing Project Born of Unbridled Optimism

Public housing was once thought of as being positive, radical, and hopeful.