Maggie Smith
Mix Tape: Thematically Speaking, Death’s Still in the Lead
Check out this infographic of the 2011 Booker Longlist novels broken down by theme. Death is still your best bet by an overwhelming margin, but maybe Nanny Trust Issues, Homicidal Cowboy Brothers, and An Escaped Tiger will gain some ground…
Mix Tape: Only Human
How to introduce an author—and how not to. Case in point: “Should a beloved, Pulitzer Prize-winning author have to hear the president of Northwestern’s Jewish students’ society call him Michael Sha-BONE eight times in two minutes? No. Because he flew…
Mix Tape: “Recipes like poems are roadmaps”
Farmers have Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp. “The working man” has Springsteen. But what about struggling creatives—dancers, artists, actors, musicians, writers, designers? “The final irony is that these are times when we most need the arts but seem the most…
Mix Tape: Word for Word
Rachel Zucker thinks “it’s important for poets to occasionally try to articulate ‘what kind’ of poetry they write.” Check out this compilation—part one and part two—of various poets’ responses to this tricky question. A blind woman sits down to write,…
Mix Tape: Mellow Yellow Smellow
Who said it, James Joyce or Kool Keith? (“One is the most innovative writer of the 20th century, the other is James Joyce.”) Philip Larkin once said, “Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.” Two new collections are…
