In her sumptuous new memoir, Jamaican writer Safiya Sinclair describes her escape from a difficult childhood ruled by her tyrannical father. For Sinclair, poetry became a lifeline. Plus: that fizzy chocolate drink called an egg cream contains...
Katie in Everett, Washington, is curious about the expression If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers. What is a tinker? She heard this phrase on the television series The Gilded Age, in response to a character who...
The anatomy of effective prose, and the poetry of anatomy. Ever wonder what it’d be like to audit a class taught by a famous writer? A graduate student’s essay offers a taste of a semester studying with author Annie Dillard. Also, what...
For a taste of what it’s like to spend a semester studying writing with a renowned author, check out Alexander Chee’s essay in The Morning News, “Annie Dillard and the Writing Life.” Dillard’s remarkable description of...