The director Steve McQueen has turned the book Twelve Years A Slave into the film 12 Years a Slave, interpreting Solomon Northup’s story with accuracy, exquisite craft, and significant understanding. What makes 12 Years A Slave remarkable are the consciousness, skill, and experience of Solomon Northup, his being an embodiment not of potential but of actual value—value (valued formed by liberty, knowledge, accomplishment, and family relations) that was denied by those who captured him.
Author:
Jeri Kroll on Workshopping the Heart
The author of Vanishing Point, and Workshopping the Heart reads from and talks about her latest books of poetry, about the transition from poetry to drama, the relationship between poetry and theatre, about her protagonist Diana, on writing about anorexia, about family…
A review of Vanishing Point by Jeri Kroll
At no point does the book lose its dramatic momentum. In fact, so compelling is the plot at times that it takes some effort to slow down and read the poems fully as poetry should be read, rather than racing on to see what happens. Vanishing Point is quick and easy to read, but the poems repay second and third readings where the complexity of the work begin to unfold. Diana’s self-awareness grows viscerally and sensually as she comes to accept the sensations of her adult body through the final section.
An Interview with M.J. Vigna
The author of Deadly Deadly talks about her life and history, her inspirations, the books she’s reading, her upcoming projects, her literary mentors, and lots more.
A review of Perla by Carolina De Robertis
Breadth of vision and the ability to construct tension from the first page maintains the drama as the events wind and twist through each step taken toward the inexorable truth about Perla, her parents, her lineage and her country. It is a journey well worth taking.
A review of The Killer Next Door by Alex Marwood
Marwood makes clever use of cliffhanger endings and shifts from one point of view character to another to build suspense. The Epilogue begins grimly, showing Cher back in the social welfare system, but surprises us with a gratifying conclusion. Readers who enjoyed Marwood’s earlier mystery/suspense novel, The Wicked Girls, will like this one for its many surprises.
Notes on the television program “Roots,” Black Narratives, the new King monument in Washington, D.C., and Barack
I know that the original broadcast of the television program “Roots,” based on African-American writer Alex Haley’s imaginative reconstruction of his family’s history, was an important cultural and historical event, presenting at once to all of America a history—the history of the capture and enslavement of Africans—that had been referred to but rarely discussed at length or widely.
A review of Impressionism edited by Ingo F. Walther
This is a glorious book, packed with information and insight and luxuriously detailed reproductions, which you’ll undoubtedly want to dip into always. It overflows with rapturous beauty
A review of No One is here Except All of Us by Ramona Ausubel
No One is here Except All of Us is an exquisite, circular tale that takes us back to where we started – where we all start – at birth, where we create the world afresh. It’s full of wonder even in the midst of the most dire tragedies. Beautifully written, full of pain and poetry, this is a book that opens histories most intense and painful moments and shows what survives: love and DNA.
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The winner will be drawn on the first of November 2014 from subscribers who enter via the newsletter. Good luck!