by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jun 23, 2009 | reviews |
At the beginning of The Northern Clemency, a novel by English writer Philip Hensher, Francis is nine. His father announces that he’s found a house. “‘I’ve found a book,’ Francis wanted to say to complete everyone’s happiness.”...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jun 12, 2009 | first novels, reviews |
At the beginning of The Vagrants, the first novel by Yiyun Li, one at a time, each of the main characters comes into contact with one of the notices being posted all over the Chinese town of Muddy Waters announcing the execution and denunciation of a...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | May 20, 2009 | journeys, memoir, place, reviews |
It’s often what grabs us when we are very little that becomes our passion. We can remember the moment. For me, it was a morning in kindergarten. I must have been five. One of the kid’s mothers put on a puppet show–in French. I was smitten. I...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | May 7, 2009 | craft of writing, memoir, memory, reviews, time |
Frank Conroy was the director of the Iowa Writers Workshop for 18 years. He was also a writer himself, the author of 5 books, including the “classic memoir” Stop-Time. He died of colon cancer in 2005 at the age of 69. “My faith in the firmness of...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Apr 29, 2009 | catching moments, craft of writing, memory, reviews |
“We weren’t really stealing them…But we call it stealing to make it more exciting.” Per Petterson is a writer who can stand inside a moment, turn in a circle and look up and down until there is no inch of that moment left unexplored. Mary...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Apr 20, 2009 | craft of writing, reviews |
75 years ago this month, Tender is the Night was published. In a friend’s copy of the book, Fitzgerald inscribed the following: “If you liked The Great Gatsby, for God’s sake read this. Gatsby was a tour de force but this is a confession of...
