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Chill Blue Paint Box: Rereading Sons and Lovers
In 1975, Sons and Lovers meant to me the Gethsemane of emotional ambivalence—erotic yet ascetic, the stakes high as scripture, translated into genital dialect. More
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A lifetime of alcoholism had been responsible for his stroke, so he had only himself to blame. This seemed to be an empowering thought for him, and he repeated… More
What Happens To Your Mother Is Not Your Concern!
The cruelties and abuses taking place today in Syria defy all comprehension. Perhaps not even literature, or the language itself, is sufficient to be able to depict what is… More
Tortured Academic and Doctor in Worsening Health in Bahrain
Dr. Abduljalil al-Singace, imprisoned for treating protesters in a hospital in 2011, requires urgent medical care. More
Sojourn in the Whale
It was not enthusiasm for the YWCA that brought the aspiring poet from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to New York. As soon as she could politely break free, she headed straight… More
The People in the Trees
Our mother's sight was fine, but she often behaved as a blind person would; she moved through the world as a sleepwalker. More
On James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain
Whatever fear strikes any reader of Baldwin’s book awaits right in that opening paragraph: an unseemly portrait of faith. It is not literary sex, or violence, or the conflation… More
PEN DIY: “Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.”
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines D.I.Y., or Do-It-Yourself as “the activity of doing or making something […] without professional training or assistance.” Writers across time have applied this idea to… More
2014 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize: An Interview with the Finalists
Dear James Baldwin, How do you think psychotherapy would have changed your writing? More
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