Literature and Poetry
Joanne Brickman's Senior Women Sleuths, Part One
Miss Jane Marple of the Kentish village of St. Mary Mead, a blue-eyed, frail lady who dressed in a black lace cap and mittens, has had a broad and lasting appeal, aging along the way. Miss Marple first appeared in a series of short stories published in Britain's The Sketch magazine. In the beginning, Miss Marple is a gleeful gossip and not particularly nice. Over the years as social rules changed, so did mystery female series' characters. more »
Finding Fame and Fortune As A Writer (Ha!)
Rose Madeline Mula writes: When people learn that I write, they immediately assume I've got it made. Look at J. K. Rowling, they think. Didn't she make a gazillion bucks (or in her case pounds) writing about that nerdy little wizard, Harry Potter? True. And my career does bear a striking resemblance to JK's, up to a point — the point where she went from being a struggling unknown, to cashing her first staggering royalty check. I'd be happy with a tiny percentage of her success. But how to achieve it? more »
Taylor Branch, Barbara Kingsolver, Katherine Paterson, Natasha Trethewey: Authors at the National Book Festival
Authors and poets Margaret Atwood, Marie Arana, Taylor Branch, Don DeLillo, Khaled Hosseini, Barbara Kingsolver, Brad Meltzer, Joyce Carol Oates, Katherine Paterson and Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey will be among writers speaking. New Library of Congress exhibits celebrate opera, the majestic art form that has transfixed audiences for more than 400 years, and the other exhibit celebrates what Martin Luther King Jr. called "the greatest demonstration for freedom in the nation’s history." more »
The Other Side of Silence; What Sounded Appealing Regardless of its Horror
Joan L. Cannon writes: “If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.” George Elliot, Middlemarch. Are we in a time when we forget that the silence at the end of a disaster of whatever kind hides a roar that only saints and philosophers have the stomach for? more »