What Is Autobiography? A Conversation with Debut Memoirist Victoria Chang, by Amy Wright

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Dear Memory, expands the field of the memoir for readers to explore a full-color archive of family photos and historical documents collaged between lines of poetry and letters.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 ]

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Looking back on the life of advertising legend Philip Geier

Philip H. Geier, Jr., the long-time chairman and CEO of the advertising giant known as The Interpublic Group of Companies, died on Wednesday, June 19, at the age of 84. Over the course of his nearly six-decade-long career, Geier made a name for himself in the worlds of both advertising and... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2019-06-24 19:42:28 UTC ]
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My Library Story: How L.A. saved the books

The Los Angeles Times Book Club is reading "The Library Book," the Susan Orlean bestseller about the 1986 L.A. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-21 14:00:04 UTC ]
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My Library Story: How L.A. saved the books

The Los Angeles Times Book Club is reading “The Library Book,” the Susan Orlean bestseller about the 1986 L.A. Library fire. We invited readers to share their library stories. I was the Community Redevelopment Agency’s deputy administrator for downtown L.A. when I managed the outside... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-21 14:00:00 UTC ]
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Bobby Hundreds’ memoir is a snapshot of L.A.’s streetwear culture of the 2000s

The title of Bobby Hundreds’ book — “This Is Not a T-Shirt” — is straight-up transparent: It’s not a T-shirt. It’s less obvious at the outset — but not for long — that it’s also not a traditional memoir, brand history or “how-we-turned-a couple-hundred bucks-into-global-streetwear-label”... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-20 15:40:00 UTC ]
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Review:: Bobby Hundreds' memoir is a snapshot of L.A.'s streetwear culture of the 2000s

The title of Bobby Hundreds' book — "This Is Not a T-Shirt" — is straight-up transparent: It's not a T-shirt. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-20 15:30:01 UTC ]
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Susan Orlean on the crazy things people ask a librarian, from 'The Library Book'

The Los Angeles Times Book Club is reading "The Library Book" by Susan Orlean. Here's an excerpt. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-19 10:00:08 UTC ]
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Susan Orlean on the crazy things people ask a librarian, from ‘The Library Book’

The Los Angeles Times Book Club is reading "The Library Book" by Susan Orlean. Here’s an excerpt. The opposite of a sensory-deprivation tank might be to spend a Monday morning in the library’s InfoNow Department. The phone rings with that weird blooping electronic tone all day long, and the... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-19 10:00:00 UTC ]
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A Moby-Dick–Inspired Memoir of Menopause

On a quest to make sense of what was happening to her body, the author Darcey Steinke sought guidance from female killer whales. Continue reading at The Atlantic

[ The Atlantic | 2019-06-18 14:40:31 UTC ]
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Life Lessons from Memoirs

Memoirs of faith by Rachel Denhollander, Tom Voss and Rebecca Anne Nguyen, Helen Prejean, and others teach and reassure readers. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-06-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Serpent's Tail snaps up 'devastating' memoir from Fuller

Serpent’s Tail will publish a new memoir by British-Zimbabwean author Alexandra Fuller. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-13 15:11:33 UTC ]
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Every Tory MP sent This Is Going to Hurt as reminder of Jeremy Hunt's record

Adam Kay is sending his exposé of life as a junior doctor during the leadership candidate’s time as health secretary to highlight how he ‘left the NHS in tatters’Adam Kay is sending a copy of his bestselling memoir about life as a junior doctor, This Is Going to Hurt, to all 330 Conservative MPs... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-06-12 11:40:05 UTC ]
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Last minute Father’s Day gifts for 7 different kinds of book-loving dads

Books are a go-to gift for Father's Day, but if you rely on chain bookstore displays, you'll probably find a lot of the same things: cookbooks with recipes for grilling obscenely large hunks of meat, ghostwritten memoirs by pro athletes, and techno-thrillers featuring very long descriptions... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-11 17:30:00 UTC ]
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Los Angeles Times Book Club reads 'The Library Book'

Just in time for summer reading, the Los Angeles Times Book Club has chosen "The Library Book" as our first community read and will host a June 25 forum with bestselling author Susan Orlean. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-06 10:00:06 UTC ]
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Former NBA star Dwyane Wade to publish a memoir this fall

Newly retired NBA star Dwyane Wade will tell the story of his life and celebrated basketball career in a new memoir. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-05 17:29:40 UTC ]
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Review: Colin Dayan's 'In the Belly of Her Ghost' exorcises memories of mother after she's gone

Colin Dayan's brief but explosive memoir of her relationship to her mother should find a place among the more indelible life histories of the last several years. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-05 16:00:01 UTC ]
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Rob Zabrecky's memoir 'Strange Cures' is an ode to a forgotten L.A.

In musician and magician Rob Zabrecky's new memoir, "Strange Cures," the Los Angeles of the 1980s and early '90s is an alien landscape of raucous underground nightclubs, seedy Hollywood crack dens and low-rent Silver Lake duplexes; and the Valley is a place where errant teens roam free, sans... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-05-30 18:01:20 UTC ]
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Debbie Harry of Blondie to release her first memoir

Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry will tell the story of her career as a musician and actress in a new memoir set for release this fall. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-05-30 16:44:35 UTC ]
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Jonas Brothers announce a memoir for fall release

Pop sensations the Jonas Brothers will tell the story of their lives in the music world in a new memoir. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-05-29 17:59:56 UTC ]
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The Daily Beast is Growing Thanks to Reader Loyalty

As a digital media publisher, The Daily Beast does not rely on search and social media for its success. Instead, their goal is to focus on the platforms they can control in order to create a deeply engaged audience from its base of loyal readers, according to CRO Mia Libby. “We have been... Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2019-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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What We're Reading – April 2019

Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado I've absolutely loved this collection of short stories, which floats between the weird and the queer, passing horror, black comedy and feminism along the way. Doubles and others are especially important: a wife enters her wife’s dream when they... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2019-04-11 08:49:28 UTC ]
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