Interviews Victoria Chang’s new collection, Dear Memory, expands the field of the memoir for readers to explore a full-color archive of family photos and historical documents collaged between lines of poetry and letters. It prompts us to ask, with her, What composes a life and what makes of life art? What makes of memory history, and whose history, and how do we survive loss? We might expect the author of five books of poetry and two children’s books to incorporate the lyric in her first book of nonfiction, but Chang goes further. If her memories arrive at times as poetry, she denies them the protection of a poem. For instance, at the end of a letter that begins, “Do you remember those Fridays in gym class . . . ,” she realizes that memory may be “the exit wound of joy.” Such insights pierce us before we can register surprise. Elsewhere, she covers her mother’s mouth with three Mandarin characters in the photo on her certificate of naturalization, inserting her reservation into the official record along with her daughter’s grief. I reached out to Chang, moved by this book’s innovative form. “It was always my goal as a writer to be able to make whatever I want,” she told me via Zoom video hosted by the low-residency MFA program at Antioch University, which she directs. The winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN Voelcker Award, a Sustainable Arts Foundation... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2022-01-05 19:50:39 UTC ]
TO BE A STRANGER in your own land is alienating enough, but to be a stranger among your own people? That vexing question is at the heart of two books — one a Bildungsroman, the other a memoir — by Arab authors whose narratives might be best described as the misadventures of the insider-outsider.... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-02-15 18:00:32 UTC ]
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IF YOU WERE a depressed young woman in the 1990s, Elizabeth Wurtzel’s memoir Prozac Nation (1994) was required reading. I remember standing in a New Jersey Barnes & Noble, tenderly taking the book from the shelf, and turning it over in my hands. Who was this woman on the cover? She looked so... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-02-14 13:30:58 UTC ]
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Free agent NFL quarterback and social activist Colin Kaepernick plans to publish a memoir via his own publishing venture and release an audiobook version of the untitled book via an exclusive deal with Audible. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-02-14 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Shetland literature has a short history. Or, more accurately, the long history of Shetland literature has been truncated — the result of a double disadvantage, as far as official histories are concerned: an oral culture, in which few people could read or write, and a language that died out... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2020-02-13 12:54:04 UTC ]
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Colin Kaepernick announced on Thursday that he will release a memoir this year under his new imprint, Kaepernick Publishing. He also has partnered with Audible for a multiproject deal. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-02-13 12:35:32 UTC ]
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This week on The Maris Review, R. Eric Thomas joins Maris Kreizman to discuss his new book, Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America. On choosing the moments that go into a memoir: Maris Kreizman: Your memoir collection is very much about figuring out who you are and being comfortable... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-13 09:47:59 UTC ]
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Explorer and biologist Roman Dial reflects on parenting in this memoir of the search for his son, who vanished while solo hiking in Costa Rica. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-02-12 23:38:32 UTC ]
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Explorer and biologist Roman Dial reflects on parenting in this memoir of the search for his son, who vanished while solo hiking in Costa Rica. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-02-12 23:38:32 UTC ]
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The pop star-turned-fashion mogul was always defined by men. Now, she’s defining herself. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-02-11 13:43:43 UTC ]
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Adrienne Miller’s memoir chronicles her tenure as fiction editor of Esquire in the 1990s and her rocky relationship with David Foster Wallace, the era’s iconic novelist. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-02-11 10:00:07 UTC ]
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When you’re writing a memoir, you find that you’re obliged to confront your own ideas about the nature of memory. In Gore Vidal’s own splendid memoir Palimpsest, he suggests that when we remember an event, we don’t remember it as it actually happened, but rather that we remember our memory of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-11 09:48:31 UTC ]
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Vivian Gornick and the revolution that won’t end: John Freeman profiles the author of Unfinished Business. | Lit Hub “What are we to do with the art of profoundly compromised men?” Zan Romanoff on Adrienne Miller’s memoir of life with literary men, including David Foster Wallace. | Lit Hub “It... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-10 09:49:30 UTC ]
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From Secret Barristers to pseudonymous paramedics and White House moles, Anon is writing a lot of books these days – and identifying some unexpected truths“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman,” wrote Virginia Woolf. Today, Anonymous is probably an outraged employee in a public service: a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-02-10 00:00:19 UTC ]
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In her new memoir "Open Book," singer and former reality-TV star Jessica Simpson opens up about sexual abuse, addiction and dating John Mayer. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-02-05 14:54:55 UTC ]
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I feel creatively lost most of the time. It doesn’t matter if I’m beginning a fresh project, wading through the middle, or racing toward the end—I often find myself in a fugue state that makes it impossible for me to understand what I’m doing, even as I’m doing it. This is what I love about […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-05 09:48:59 UTC ]
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Novelist says that in the run-up to the 2016 election, she began to imagine a life where Clinton ‘made different choices, personally and professionally’Hillary Rodham Clinton recounts, in her memoir Living History, how Bill Clinton “asked me to marry him again, and again, and I always said no”.... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-02-04 12:14:07 UTC ]
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A Reese Witherspoon pick, a Silicon Valley memoir and the most talked about book of the year so far. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-02-04 00:16:04 UTC ]
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Because they have nothing to hide about anything, the White House has issued some kind of threat—according to CNN’s Jake Tapper—in a formal letter to former National Security Adviser John Bolton, whose forthcoming memoir from Simon & Schuster contains first-hand accounts of Donald Trump... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-29 17:43:05 UTC ]
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In his memoir 'Children of the Land,' poet Marcelo Hernandez Castillo writes of border journeys, family separation and crossing a 'threshold of invisibility.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-01-29 15:00:08 UTC ]
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Ocean Vuong, bestselling author of "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous," talks about writing and inspiration with the L.A. Times Book Club. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-01-28 22:54:54 UTC ]
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