MFAW-VT faculty member Kenny Fries will be Visiting Writer at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, PA next week. During his time at King’s, Kenny will meet with faculty and students, visit two writing classes, and give a public reading on April 17, 7:30pm, Burke Auditorium, McGowan School of Business. Previous visiting writers at King’s have included Michael […]
MFAW-VT Faculty Member Douglas A. Martin will be read and talk with Andrew Durbin on “Queer Narratives & Methods” on Thursday, April 5th, for CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, Room 9205, in New York City. The program starts at 6:30pm.
Dear Books,
From the moment my father gave me Go Tell It on the Mountain and told me,
“Read this and you’ll know more about who I am,”
I knew one thing was inescapable:
I would need to read that book, get back to him about it, and keep on reading and reading—
Though the newest version of the Echo is decent, you can get a better response to life if you use your own voice—i.e. the Personal Echo. The Personal Echo is in high demand because it offers the gift of someone else controlling your life, but doing it in a way that feels as if you are talking to yourself. And truly, what writer wouldn’t want that?
To blog or not to blog–that is the question, writers. Whether it is nobler to essay than to blog is a serious matter, and not everyone can do it or do it well.Because to do it well, one must face the truth of blogging and accept it: it’s a genre. It has rules. It requires… attention to craft.
I am an unabashed Language Freak. Word Freak. Sentence Freak. Grammar and Punctuation Freak. I am deeply in love with what William Golding called “that massive instrument” the English language. For me putting words down on paper is like playing a finely tuned piano. No wrong notes, please! My instrument is too precious to misuse.
Welcome to a table piled with a potluck of literature. If you think about it, all writers and readers are connected by our own ancient internet of literature.
There is a stack of summer books on the floor still to return to the library, that have reached their renewal limit, overdue.
Moving back to London requires minimal adjustment, it’s as easy (as a writer once said about revision, compared to first draft composing) as sliding into a bath of warm oatmeal. No culture shock save for the first instant of wondering why dogs and babies are driving cars; all you have to do is exercise a little preliminary caution crossing the street and you’re done. Or maybe some mild culture shock, over here in the Land of Other People’s Problems, to learn exactly what the tabloid media judges important. “Horror on No. 77!” shrieks the top headline in the Evening Standard, the free newspaper everyone reads on the Tube going home after work.
I wanted to open the valise of what could not make the trip into English. I wanted to hear Cortázar’s voice, the author speaking the language in which he wrote.
