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Elaine Neil Orr: Haunted by Africa
by Evelyn Somers 1. When Elaine Neil Orr was working on her Master’s degree in poetry in the 1970s, she had a vision of herself standing on a street corner handing out poems and living hand to mouth....
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In Search of Lost Dream Time: Two New Books by André Aciman
By Jennifer Acker 1. If ever there was a writer disappointed with the here and now, it’s André Aciman. Best-known for evoking the lost Alexandria of his childhood, Aciman writes in a recent essay:...
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Experience Required: Growing the Roots
by Anne Korkeakivi My publishing career as a fiction writer bloomed after I turned forty. But my life as a fiction writer began long before then. Getting published is not all there is to being a...
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Diana Athill: The Sufficient Self
by Amy Weldon 1. In his book In Other Words, critic Christopher Moore describes the Japanese word shibui, meaning “an aesthetic that only time can reveal.” Shibui signifies the way in which “as we...
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In His Own Words: W.G. Sebald
“He’s a playful experimenter,” says Robert Goree of W.G. Sebald, “even if his themes are weighty.” One sees both playfulness and weight in the following quotes from Sebald’s fiction and poetry....
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BEST OF BLOOM: André Aciman’s Search for Lost Dream Time
Throughout August we are revisiting some of the “best of” Bloom from the past year. Following is an encore post, originally published on June 10, 2013. By Jennifer Acker 1. If ever there was a writer...
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BEST OF BLOOM: George Eliot: Strong-Minded Woman and Varying Unfolding Self
Throughout August we are revisiting some of the “best of” Bloom from the past year. Following is an encore post, originally published on February 4, 2013. by Rob Jacklosky “When we are young we think...
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In His Own Words: Pete Dexter
Rob Jacklosky’s 9/23 feature on Pete Dexter makes Dexter’s preoccupations as a writer abundantly clear—violence, vivid experience, and the pursuit of truth. So too do these quotes below, taken from...
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IN HIS OWN WORDS: Eugen Ruge
On Monday, Jill Kronstadt took a look at In Times of Fading Light (In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts; 2011)—Eugen Ruge’s debut novel, which explores the way the politics and history of the German...
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IN HIS OWN WORDS: Daniyal Mueenuddin
In Monday’s feature on Daniyal Mueenuddin, Nicki Leone looks at his debut short story collection, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. The quotes below tell some of his side of the story—his genesis as a...
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IN HER OWN WORDS: Annie Proulx
It seems that, for Annie Proulx, it’s always been about the story. Interviews reveal her to be a voracious reader, as well as entirely at ease with having debuted as a writer in her 50s. And one has...
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IN HER OWN WORDS: Barbara Anderson
In Monday’s feature piece on Barbara Anderson, Sue Dickman describes the writer’s fierce talent and dry wit, the universal appeal of her work, and her keen perspectives on the evolving lives of women...
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Science for the Masses: Mary Roach Reports
by Nicole Wolverton 1. The devil is in the details, and nowhere is that more obvious than in Mary Roach’s body of work. Roach writes nonfiction science, and these books are far from the dry and boring...
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Q&A With Mary Roach
Bloom: You write about science in a way that seems to give adults permission to embrace their inner 12 year old. For instance, there’s quite a bit of talk about flatulence in your books—Packing for...
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IN HER OWN WORDS: Ellen Meloy
In Monday’s feature, Jane Hammons wrote movingly of the work of naturalist and nonfiction writer Ellen Meloy. The quotes below reveal what makes Meloy’s writing about nature, landscapes, history, and...
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Woolf’s Solid Objects & Busch’s Shimmering Drop of Life: Reflections on the...
by Charlotte Zoë Walker When I was a child in Hayward California and had a long walk home from school every day, I had the idea of picking up bits of colored broken glass that I found along the road; I...
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IN HIS OWN WORDS: Nicholson Baker
The following quotes from the novels, nonfiction, and interviews of Nicholson Baker reveal what Sonya Chung called “[t]he fluidity between high culture and mass culture” evident in books like 2009’s...
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IN HIS OWN WORDS: Edward P. Jones
In Monday’s profile, Edward Porter wrote about Edward P. Jones’s life and literary career, identifying many of the author’s foremost preoccupations: race, life and death, and the way memory and...
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IN HIS OWN WORDS: Bruno Schulz
His writing might lead you to believe otherwise, but as Nicki Leone shows us in Monday’s feature piece, Bruno Schulz “did not spring forth suddenly and fully formed” as a writer in middle age. His...
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“Everything Rich and Strange”: Maureen Stanton’s Journey into Flea-Market...
by Evelyn Somers 1. When I first saw the title of Maureen Stanton’s book, Killer Stuff and Tons of Money: An Insider’s Look at the World of Flea Markets, Antiques, and Collecting (the Penguin Press,...
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