“I Write about People Whose Lives Are on Fire”: A Conversation with Sandra Cisneros, by Emily Doyle

Interviews   Sandra Cisneros’s success as a poet, short-story writer, novelist, and essayist is tied to her determination to write about others with awareness and love. Her work is populated by powerful people—powerful in their pain, joy, and hunger for home. This fall, Cisneros’s poetry collection Woman Without Shame will be published in English by Knopf and in Spanish by Vintage Español. We spoke ahead of UC Riverside’s forty-fifth annual Writers Week, at which Cisneros received the Lifetime Achievement Award. As we settled into our conversation by making not-so-small talk, Cisneros commented: “We have a very profound connection with landscapes, and when we’re born into the wrong landscape, we feel it.” When I told her that’s what makes me nervous about the idea of leaving Earth for another planet, her response captured the service-minded spirit with which she’s lived and written: “Yes, absolutely. I feel like traveling south has been a return for me to an ancient DNA that wanted to come back. The people that ventured far away and couldn’t come back—I came back for them.” Cisneros’s writing offers an opportunity to return to ourselves and the places from which we came. Emily Doyle: The concept of home seems to inform much of your work. In your memoir, A House of My Own, you say you knew “little about how women writers lived” and “even less about working-class writers.” What has living like a writer meant to you, and has your... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'

[ World Literature Today | 2022-04-01 16:29:13 UTC ]
News tagged with: #in-person events #hotel rooms #ryszard kapuściński

Other Publishing stories related to: '“I Write about People Whose Lives Are on Fire”: A Conversation with Sandra Cisneros, by Emily Doyle'


Children's Bookshow announces series of 15 live events this autumn

The Children's Bookshow charity has announced it will be returning to theatres across the country this autumn with a series of 15 live events featuring authors, poets and illustrators, including Michael Rosen and Val Bloom. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-07-01 17:59:37 UTC ]
More news stories like this |


Roger Bennett spent his British boyhood fixated on ‘Miami Vice’ and the Chicago Bears — then lived his own American Dream

Bennett’s new memoir, “(Re)Born in the USA,” traces an offbeat journey from obsession to proud citizenship. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-07-01 10:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #american dream


Judith Farr, scholar of Emily Dickinson and poet in her own right, dies at 85

A longtime Georgetown University professor, she published two seminal books about Dickinson, as well as a novel and poetry collection influenced by the belle of Amherst. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-06-23 07:17:52 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #emily dickinson


Walker launches third children's sports writing competition

Walker Books is launching its third Young Sportswriter of the Year competition, in partnership with the Guardian and the Football School series of books. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-06-10 01:41:47 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #walker books #young sportswriter #year competition


Battacharya wins Spread the Word Life Writing Prize

Santanu Battacharya has won Spread the Word’s Life Writing Prize 2021, with "The Nicer One", hailed by judges as a "gut-punch of a piece". Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-06-09 14:59:56 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #won spread


The Advantages of Failure: What Thoreau Taught Me About Journal Writing

I have known plenty of failure in my writing life. Inspired partly by Henry David Thoreau, I set out to be a writer after college. Which effectively meant that I worked part-time as a carpenter and bookseller for the next dozen years without publishing a word. My current day job is as a teacher... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-06-04 08:49:40 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #writing life #dozen years #bookseller


Sales of Adult Fiction Books Stay on Fire

Unit sales of adult books rose 25.8% last week over May 30, 2020, and for the first five months of 2021, adult book sales jumped 32.4% over the comparable period a year ago at outlets that report to BookScan. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-06-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #adult book


Poetry and Nursing in the Filipino Diaspora: A Conversation with Romalyn Ante, by Marianne Chan

Interviews Photo by Oluwaseyi Johnson / Unsplash I was lucky to meet Romalyn Ante when I was invited to read at a virtual event organized by R. A. Villanueva and hosted by Books Are Magic in August 2020. Ante was the guest of honor at the event,... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2021-06-02 11:57:51 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #important thing #laid bare #memoir


In ‘The Living Sea of Waking Dreams,’ last-ditch medical interventions are their own horror story

Booker Prize winner Richard Flanagan returns to familiar themes, including the human capacity for cruelty. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-05-31 16:41:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #waking dreams #horror story #familiar themes


But what if I want to write about mangoes?

Here I am. Writing about mangoes, while eating a mango. I am a stereotype dream come true. “I try to avoid any mention of mangoes, of spices and monsoons,” said writer Jeet Thayil, in an NPR interview a few years ago. Yes, these are the stereotypes that we are often pigeonholed in. I debated and... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-05-28 09:09:52 UTC ]
More news stories like this |


Writing an Old Friend: Spotlight on J. William Lewis

The teenage protagonist in J. William Lewis’s debut novel, The Essence of Nathan Biddle, seeks to answer life’s biggest questions. (Sponsored) Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-05-24 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #teenage protagonist #biggest questions


“Silence Became My Mother Tongue”: A Conversation with Sulaiman Addonia, by Anderson Tepper

Interviews Photo of Sulaiman Addonia by Alexander Meeus. For me, one of the most astounding books of this past year—which may have slipped your attention due to the pandemic—was Silence Is My Mother Tongue, the second novel by Ethiopian Eritrean... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2021-05-18 13:43:22 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #literary projects #literary prize #ha ha #literary festival #literary award


Eric Nguyen Learns to Live with History

At the Chicago Review of Books, Eric Nguyen discusses his new novel, Things We Lost to the Water, and how Vietnamese American literature processes the ongoing influence of colonialism, as seen in two of the book’s characters, Công and Ben. “Công’s narrative is parallel with Ben’s, who doesn’t... Continue reading at The Millions

[ The Millions | 2021-05-17 20:30:35 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #history appeared #chicago review #american literature


Kirstin Innes on Scotland's exciting female writing

Writer Kirstin Innes talks to The Bookseller about some of the most exciting and experimental Scottish female voices being published today. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-05-15 00:01:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #published today #bookseller


Harriet Evans | 'I want to write about things that interest me'

On the sunny spring morning that we speak, Harriet Evans has been going through the page proofs of her 12th novel, The Beloved Girls, with a forensic eye—long before she was a bestselling author, Evans was a highly regarded editor—and it has not met her exacting standards. “I’m actually... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-05-14 16:27:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #harriet evans #bestselling author


How a decades-long conversation shaped the young United States

Akhil Reed Amar celebrates the debates that led to revolt, the Constitution and U.S. law. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-05-14 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |


Reimagining the Classics: A Conversation with Publisher Ilan Stavans, by Jenna Tang

Interviews Since 2015, award-winning Restless Books publisher Ilan Stavans has been immersed in bringing the literary classics to new audiences through Restless Classics. These editions come with introductions by prominent diverse writers from around... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2021-05-12 15:41:23 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #uncle tom #decades ago #single word #tabula rasa #king lear #books publisher


Meghan, Duchess of Sussex writes debut children's book for PRH

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex has written a children's book for Penguin Random House called The Bench, about the “special bond between father and son as seen through a mother’s eyes”.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-05-04 02:52:11 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #penguin random house #children's book


Broadening the funding conversation—and not just the spotlight—on local news

#FollowLocalJournalists. That’s the hashtag on a campaign that Twitter is launching today to encourage its users to do just that. According to Sara Fischer, of Axios, in addition to social-media activity, the campaign is running full-page ads in local papers owned by Gannett (including the... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-05-03 12:04:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #publishing platform


Paris Lees | 'I grew up feeling like I wasn’t good enough, so to feel respected for my writing is really moving'

A contributing editor for British Vogue, Paris Lees made her name as the UKs first high-profile transgender woman to break into the mainstream when she was named top of the Pink List of the most influential LGBT people in Britain, and became the first “out” transgender woman to appear on BBC... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-05-01 02:56:30 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #contributing editor #british vogue #transgender woman #memoir