Search
-
June 12, 2023Research, Research, Research
I thought I had mended my ways. I thought I had discipline. The evidence is clear: I don’t put all my digital research materials into one folder on my desktop computer anymore. I actually have sub-folders! ...
-
July 04, 2025More Tips on Writing Book Reviews
One year ago, I wrote a column on getting into writing book reviews. The topic of book reviews remains ever-important, especially in a media climate where outlets to review grow smaller and smaller. In ...
-
December 11, 2023Read an Excerpt from Tim Bowling's Raw & Atmospheric Return to the 1970s, The Marvels of Youth
The Vietnam War, hippies, Watergate. The mid-to-late 70s were a time of turmoil and change, and the last days of a pre-Reaganomics, tech-boom world that was lurking around the corner, with Star Wars: ...
-
February 10, 2017
The absurdity of literary prizes part 2 of 2
“ I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it.”For my most recent book, I had a reviewer who skewered me for quoting Shakespeare, and then citing it in my end notes. Because, everyone who reads ...
-
April 18, 2014
Body Parts
Am I writing the same poem over and over again? My books are teeming with the invisible and a state of loneliness that could be a one-man cold war. I never set out to revisit these themes, but they almost ...
-
July 28, 2014Still Illegitimate
In this first-person novel I’m working on now, I told myself I wouldn’t write about clothes, I wouldn’t write about vanity, I wouldn’t write about depression, and I wouldn’t write about feminism, ...
-
December 24, 201617 for 2017: Sarah Joynt recommends The Hour of the Star
10. The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector recommended by Sarah JoyntThroughout my tenure as the December Writer-In-Residence, I will be assembling a list of 17 must-read-books for 2017. To accomplish ...
-
September 29, 2016Final Post
Hi Open Book Readers,I’ve had such a wonderful time being your Writer in Residence this month.It feels like perfect timing that I’m writing my last Writer in Residence post immediately after doing ...
-
October 04, 2016
Reconciling a Double Life: Law and Literature
I’m very happy to be spending the month of October as Writer in Residence at Open Book. I’m also happy that it’s a virtual residency as I was able to skip town on the very first day to attend a ...
-
January 09, 2019Poet Susan Gillis on Landscapes, Ecologies of the Heart, and Czeslaw Milosz
Partly inspired by a memorable line in a Czeslaw Milosz poem, Susan Gillis' new collection Yellow Crane (Brick Books) is sharply observed and lovingly rendered, casting an observant and incisive eye ...