About this time last year I received a postcard in the mail that looked like this. I’d kinda been stalking Crossroads for a couple of years (sorry, about those creepy collage letters, guys), but I hadn’t made the plunge to actually attend. I live about 3 hours away, so the drive isn’t bad but it…
REVIEW: THE UNCHANGEABLE SPOTS OF LEOPARDS by Kristopher Jansma
This is the The Talented Mr. Ripley for the newest generation. It’s a twisting tale of identity and the search for true companionship. Each chapter marks another episode in the young protagonist’s life. The book opens with an “Author’s Note”, but this is only the first of many kindly deceptions. It’s not from the author…
REVIEW: OBJECT LESSONS – Stories from the Paris Review
Let me start by saying that this is not your typical collection. It is not a juried contest or an annual anthology, edited by an acclaimed professor. This is about writers, and what speaks to them. Pulled from the archives of The Paris Review, writers of today gush, er, introduce each selection. The intros range from…
Letter to a Young Critic: William Giraldi Defends True Criticism – The Daily Beast
Always good to hear… More important, a blistering review—if it is written as a candid assertion of your principles—will strengthen existing friendships and earn you new friends whose worth surpasses those who have revealed themselves as your foes. When you are truthful, and especially when the need has arisen for you to be viciously truthful,…
For a critic, niceness is beside the point – latimes.com
“What Mendelsohn is getting at is the central faith of anyone who takes criticism seriously: that it is an art. And, like all arts, it comes with its own aesthetics, its own challenges and considerations, which all of us who write it have to keep in mind. Of these, the most important is that criticism…