Stories, Essays, Reviews
. As a child growing up among the lakes and forests of Minnesota in the 1970s, the night sky made a big impression on Paul Bogard. This was the era of “real nights”, when the Milky Way glowed above the earth, an awe-inspiring streak made up of countless other worlds, at once reminding us of […]
The gifted Keith Corcoran has spent his life working towards the dream of becoming an astronaut. With a skill for mathematics, many years of dedicated training, and the support of a loving family, Keith at last succeeds. His life’s effort culminates in a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station. Tragically, in the middle of […]
I can’t resist re-posting in full an article from The Independent (6/1/13) by Suzi Feay. Mad Girl’s Love Song, a major new biography by Andrew Wilson, is scheduled to appear at the end of the month, just in time for the 50th anniversary of Plath’s suicide this February. __________________________ What could be more thrilling than finally having […]
Though the entries in this collection were first performed at the Women of Letters salon events, nothing is lost in the written word. In fact, the individual voices of the authors shine through, sometimes lighthearted and whimsical, sometimes poignant and nostalgic. Sincerely is a potent tribute to an art that is shown to be not only a lot of fun but also very much alive.
Max’s biography of Wallace does credit to his subject. He never met Wallace. Like me, the closest he got was a literary party in New York in the ’90s. But one senses he knew Wallace the way I felt I knew him. Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story is a tightly packed, straightforward account of one writer’s life, but it has something to say to all writers.
Winter Journal is an exquisite work full of delicacy and compassion. It’s an accomplished writer who can find a way to bridge the rift between world and word, seeking and reaching—if only for a moment—a point of clarity.
It’s the smallest act that determines the course of events. Everything he has longed for appears before him as a real possibility and, then, just as quickly vanishes.
While Calories & Corsets won’t make you thin, understanding the historical context of dieting helps to divest weight loss of the magical thinking that so often surrounds it.
What the Family Needed is the second novel for Amsterdam, a worthy follow up to his debut Things We Didn’t See Coming, which won The Age Book of the Year for 2009. It’s a remarkable story, full of imagination and fun. Amsterdam reaches for the delicate web that connects us to each other and suggests a subtle new way of reading our lives.
This might just be the worst review I’ve ever written, not so much because the memoir is badly written, but because it seems to be a barefaced marketing ploy: an attempt to capitalise on the “Eat, Pray, Love” phenomenon by churning out an insipid imitation of something that was pallid enough to begin with.
