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If I weren’t sitting on the couch all weekend watching those basketball games on TV, clutching my brackets in oscillating glory and despair, then I’d be packing my suitcase—because come…    read more

Earlier this week, the nominees for the 2004 Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction (described as America’s largest peer-juried fiction prize) were announced. The nominated authors and their books are Frederick Barthelme…    read more

[By Michael P. Kardos] Several years ago, I took a week-long writing workshop, during which the teacher, a visiting novelist, instructed all of us to compose a piece of “bad…    read more

[By Amy Wilkinson] I’m terrible at remembering names. All names. Like the names of people I’ve met (one or even five times) or the names of authors, stories, articles I’ve…    read more

Saint Patrick’s Day is a perfect time to consider, along with its legacy of greasy breakfasts and rich beer, the literary tradition of that tiny, wonderful island, Ireland. Of course…    read more

Dust jacket blurbs are so notoriously general, unhelpful, and badly written that when one actually makes an aesthetic statement, I stop in a sort of amazement. Having worked in a…    read more

Ok, so perhaps it’s a bit unfair to compare Sexton with Survivor, Lowell with The Littlest Groom (yes, there is such a show!). But like it or not, there are…    read more

After reading Alice Walker’s The Color Purple recently, I thought I’d pose the question, what criteria qualify a work as literature of recognized great value? Should it be considered a…    read more

It’s always refreshing to read a story that isn’t a death story, or an affair story, or any other story about a well-explored subject. This past week I read a…    read more

Recently I saw “City of God,” a movie based on an autobiographical novel about life on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. After reading the pitch (younger, smarter brother of…    read more