SMALL TOWN GIRLS: A Writer’s Memoir, By Jayne Anne Phillips Most fiction writers have given so much of their own experiences to their characters that, after long careers, they are rarely inspired to become late-life autobiographers. Over the years, however, many are likely to have published a variety of nonfiction pieces — personal essays, talks,…
In an email interview, she confessed the Marilynne Robinson-sized hole in her reading, and the book her high school boyfriend would be glad she got to. SCOTT HELLER What’s the last great book you read? I finally read “Bel Canto” and I just — ugh! — luxuriated in it. What a pleasure. What books are…
About 150 people gathered in Manhattan on a recent evening for the debut of Steak Zine, a special issue of the food-focused literary journal Cake Zine. The cover, designed to resemble a perfectly marbled cut of beef, was red meat for the people in the crowd, who had paid $20 apiece to pack into Funny…
David Malouf, a writer whose poetic vision of Australia’s dual nature — a nation defined by its British Empire heritage, yet sheltering in an untamed outback — played out across prizewinning novels, short stories, poems and opera librettos, died on Wednesday in Gold Coast, in Queensland, Australia. He was 92. His death, in a hospital,…
But here’s a catch with A.I. It’s easy to tell when a reference, or a comparison, or a sentence, doesn’t belong to a writer. Erudition and style aren’t forgeable for long; it still must be earned. As for A.I.’s sleek, space-efficient text, we’ve already grown accustomed to what that sounds like — the flat, consistent…
