Hiding the Body: My Susan Sontag Story, by John Weir

Essay John Weir Adapted from a photo by Jake weirick on Unsplash Like a dead pop star, Susan Sontag left behind a lot of fans who claim they knew her. After the release last September of Benjamin Moser’s new biography, Susan Sontag: Her Life and Work, they were all over the internet, sharing stories. Writers, of course. Especially queer writers. Does every queer writer who lived in New York City and published a book sometime between 1960 and 2000 have a Sontag story? I do! Here’s mine: Eighteen years ago, shortly after she won the National Book Award for her fourth novel, In America, some of which she had been accused of plagiarizing, and a few months before she published, in the New Yorker, maybe the only response to the 9/11 attacks, in their immediate aftermath, that was worth considering, she was invited, along with John Updike and Norman Mailer, to read at Queens College CUNY, where I teach creative writing. Surely the most impressive trio of literary bigwigs of a certain era ever to read together in Flushing. Three idols. I had long regarded their work with awe and envy. In my early twenties, in the 1980s, in a studio apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, hot and airless in summer, frigid in winter, I read—eagerly, jealously—everything they wrote. I was an aspiring writer, and they were my workshop instructors and problematic literary parents. Updike’s Couples taught me how to do a party scene. Mailer’s An American... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'

[ World Literature Today | 2020-01-07 22:09:56 UTC ]
News tagged with: #moral imperative #gertrude stein #literary community #national book award

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PNBA's Fall Tradeshow Wraps Up with Stories and Candid Advice

The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association concluded its Fall Tradeshow in Portland, Ore., with an author breakfast and bookseller education programming. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-09-22 04:00:00 UTC ]
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John Sargent on His Adventures and Misadventures in Publishing

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[ Literrary Hub | 2023-09-20 08:10:10 UTC ]
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Panel Mania: 'Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History'

A 12-page excerpt of the new graphic adaptation of historian C.L.R. James’s 1934 play about the Haitian Revolution by Nic Watts and Sakina Karimjee. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-09-20 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Match These Famous Spaceships to Their Stories

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[ Book Riot | 2023-09-05 10:36:00 UTC ]
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Claire Keegan: ‘I can’t explain my work. I just write stories’

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[ The Guardian | 2023-09-02 17:00:10 UTC ]
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A Trans Woman’s Shapeshifting Love Story

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[ Electric Literature | 2023-09-01 11:00:00 UTC ]
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This course examines the dark realities behind your favorite children's stories

A lecturer in English literature gets her students to examine children’s books through the lens of race, class and sexuality. Continue reading at The Conversation

[ The Conversation | 2023-08-29 12:24:41 UTC ]
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Can Short Stories Boost Financial Literacy?

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-08-29 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Back from Behind Like Patrick Mahomes: A Reading List of Comeback Stories

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[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-24 09:55:25 UTC ]
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What are Story Windows?

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[ Book Riot | 2023-08-18 10:33:00 UTC ]
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Is Jamel Brinkley the best short-story writer of his generation?

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[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-08-01 13:00:50 UTC ]
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Journalist called News Corp ‘tabloid bottom feeders’ after it queried ABC’s Heston Russell stories, court hears

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[ The Guardian | 2023-08-01 05:44:11 UTC ]
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Will These Stories Ever Be the Same? A Korean Translator’s Misgivings, by Ha-yun Jung

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Stories Are All about Taking up Space: A Conversation with Ekemini Pius, by Darlington Chibueze Anuonye

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[ World Literature Today | 2023-07-18 20:46:55 UTC ]
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See the cover for Mary Rechner’s new collection of short stories, Marrying Friends.

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[ Literrary Hub | 2023-07-11 15:00:43 UTC ]
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A rare Maurice Sendak story will be published next year.

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[ Literrary Hub | 2023-06-22 13:53:52 UTC ]
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[ The Guardian | 2023-06-17 17:00:19 UTC ]
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