Article Archive

In this issue we offer a look at Seymour Chwast’s graphic novel adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey, to be released by Bloomsbury in September.

As director of NYU’s creative writing program, Deborah Landau speaks about the university’s new low-residency MFA program in Paris and the storied literary history of the City of Light.

After reading about one famed writer’s seemingly carefree existence, novelist Jesse Browner ruminates on his personal decision to forego the romanticized bohemian life and contemplates every writer’s choice to pursue the trade-offs writers face between artistic aspirations or financial security.

As he steps into his new role as the NEA’s literature director, Ira Silverberg speaks about the books that first drew him to literature and how he’s currently serving the field at the nation’s largest art organization.

Literary MagNet chronicles the start-ups and closures, successes and failures, anniversaries and accolades, changes of editorship and special issues—in short, the news and trends—of literary magazines in America. This issue’s MagNet features Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Conjunctions, Phantom Drift: A Journal of New Fabulism, Fairy Tale Review, and Unstuck.

With so many good books being published every month, some literary titles worth exploring can get lost in the stacks. Page One offers the first lines of a dozen recently released books, including Carmen Bugan’s Burying the Typewriter and Joyelle McSweeney’s Percussion Grenade, as the starting point for a closer look at these new and noteworthy titles.

Despite worries that digital media sounded the death knell for serious, immersive reading, publishing platforms such as the iPad, Kindle, and Nook have given rise to single-sitting works—longform journalism pieces, single stories, and short novellas—that have broad reader appeal.

In this issue we offer a look at a new, illustrated translation of the Antigone of Sophocles. Antigonick, a collaboration between poet Anne Carson and poet and artist Bianca Stone, was released by New Directions in May. 

In this issue we offer a look at Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Are You My Mother? published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt this month. 

As literature concerned with today’s often-grim realities gains new prominence, a handful of literary organizations are highlighting the connection between poetry and politics and strengthening the network of socially conscious writers. 

In this regular feature, we offer a few suggestions for podcasts, smartphone apps, Web tools, newsletters, museum shows, and gallery openings: a medley of literary curiosities that you might enjoy. This issue’s 3 for Free features the WordNet app, the Books on the Nightstand podcast, and online video poetry journal Jupiter 88.