10 Poems by African-American Poets
Poems by African-American poets, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Kwame Dawes, Rita Dove, Langston Hughes, Tyehimba Jess, Kevin Young, and more.
Discovering the Real Little Women: Researching The Other Alcott
Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" is a cultural touchstone. But what about the women behind the "Women," Alcott's real-life sisters on whom she based her characters? An interview with novelist Elise Hooper considers the life of "The Other Alcott."
The Real-Life Robinson Crusoe (Maybe)
Marooned sailor Alexander Selkirk, rescued after four years on a remote island, is usually taken as the model of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, but is he really?
RIP Ursula K. Le Guin
"Isn't the 'subjection of women' in science fiction merely a symptom of a whole which is authoritarian, power-worshipping, and intensely parochial?"
A Forgotten Feminist Novel About the Creative Power of Rage
Remembering history helps us to parse the present, and it follows that women struggling to process these "decades of pent-up anger" can find apt reading material in the feminist fiction of the 1970s.
The Writer Behind Out of Africa
For Karen Blixen, the Danish author of "Out of Africa," role, purpose, fate and destiny are intertwined
Why the First Novel Created Such a Stir
Samuel Richardson's Pamela, the first novel in English, astounded and terrified readers. Authors have striven for the same effect since.
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Words?
Censorship isn't just redacted text and banned words. What happens when censorship is furtive, flying under the radar as much as possible?
On Embracing Boredom
What does "boredom" even mean? As both a word and a concept, boredom is not a universal phenomenon but a historical construction specific to our times.
Rudyard Kipling’s Little-Known Poem on New Year’s Resolutions
With New Year’s Day on the horizon, many people will write their resolutions. Rudyard Kipling's poem explores the trials and tribulations of resolutions.