My Cheever Summer

This summer I have been reading John Cheever. I have seen him called “the Chekhov of the suburbs” – a title that might also fit another John (Updike). I grew up in the suburbs, though a more modern version than Cheever’s, but I still can identify with his people and places. The stories are middle-class

The Subject and the Words

“I don’t know why we do it. We must be crazy.Welcome, fellow poet.” ―Richard Hugo A post on lithub.com reminded me that one professor from my undergrad days had put The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing by Richard Hugo on the reading list. I don’t have the book on a shelf

In Search of Lost Memories

There is a novel that begins:“For a long time, I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say to myself, ‘I’m falling asleep.’ And half an hour later the thought that it was time to

Damn You, Aristotle

I continue to find interesting quotes about writing at advicetowriters.com. This week, I was caught by something from Umberto Eco. “An idea you have might not be original—Aristotle will always have thought of it before you. But by creating a novel out of that idea you can make it original. Men love women. It’s not

Remains of (birth)Days

It’s the birthday of novelist Kazuo Ishiguro (1954), best known for haunting, elegiac novels like Remains of the Day about an English butler working in a big house in the years before World War II, which won the Booker Prize and became a good film. My favorite book of his is Never Let Her Go

Architects and Gardeneers

What kind of writer are you? “I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they’re going to have, where the wires

Those Early Stories

I picked up a copy of The Early Stories, a collection of short stories by John Updike, from one of the Little Libraries that people have put up in my neighborhood. I pass three of them on my usual walk and I always look in them and “leave a book, take a book” about once

How Poets Work

What is the writing process for a poet? Different than that for other writers? Some observations by and about poet Billy Collins.

Valentine

“I could love you violently, if I let myself.” – Sylvia Plath quoting an acquaintance in The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath What I am listening to on my Valentine’s Day afternoon walk.

Down with Sylvia Plath

Getting down with Sylvia Plath. It’s not easy getting up with her.