The Sewanee Review at 125
The country’s longest-running literary quarterly publishes its 500th issue with a new design, a new editor, and a new submissions platform, but the same old commitment to literary excellence.
Genre: Creative Nonfiction
Leonard Cohen’s Last Book, Response to Ishiguro’s Nobel Win, and More
Playboy’s literary editor shares her experiences; Image to publish Flannery O’Connor’s college journal; writers on their favorite cultural experience of 2017; and other news.
Kazuo Ishiguro Wins Nobel Prize in Literature, the Power of Translation, and More
Parneshia Jones named board president of Cave Canem; William Logan accuses Jill Bialosky of plagiarism; Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter to be adapted for TV; and other news.
Ending With an Opening
“Something about series finales, it’s about ending, but ending with an opening,” says Durga Chew-Bose, author of Too Much and Not the Mood (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017), in an interview with the Creative Independent about her habit of watching the series finale of a television show before sitting down to write. Revisit a personal essay you wrote in the past that ends with a solid sense of closure. Then, try out Chew-Bose’s technique and watch the series finale of a popular television show before settling down to write a new ending for your essay, one that hints at a new beginning.
A Book About Delusional Thinking, a Song About Breathtaking Conviction
Novelist and singer-songwriter Ben Arthur finds inspiration in Puritan settler Anne Hutchinson, a character in Kurt Anderson’s book Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.
National Book Award Finalists, Ocean Vuong’s Story, and More
The sophistication of Frank Bidart; Rupi Kaur’s second poetry collection, The Sun and Her Flowers; The Exorcist author’s house for sale; and other news.
The Life of a Dictionary Writer
Caption:
“People think of English as this monolithic thing but it’s really not, it’s much more like a river.” Kory Stamper, associate editor at Merriam-Webster and the author of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries (Pantheon, 2017), explains what it’s like to define English words and why there are those dots in the middle of words in the dictionary.
Genre:
Books on the Meaning of Mass Shootings, Dan Brown’s House, and More
Top contenders for the Nobel Prize in Literature; winners of the Dayton Literary Peace Prizes; writers organize Hurricane Maria relief; and other news.
The Glass Eye
Caption:
“My parents raised me in a white-sided saltbox house, the sort children draw in crayon. Years before we lived there, it had been cut in half and moved across town. We never learned why.” Jeannie Vanasco, who is featured in “The Unknown Yet Inevitable: Debut Literary Nonfiction of 2017” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, reads from her debut memoir, The Glass Eye (Tin House Books, 2017), at the University of Chicago.
Genre:
Hemingway’s First Story, Opera’s Influence on Whitman, and More
Librarian rejects Dr. Seuss books gifted from White House; 150 writers on the writing process; mystery melody in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time identified; and other news.
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