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Charles Jackson’s second act

The author of The Lost Weekend gets a lift from a new biography and a couple of reprints
F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed there were no second acts in American life.

By: CHARLES TAYLOR | March 18, 2013

Oates Gets her Goth On

Joyce Carol Oates has written in all manner of modes and genres — naturalistic fiction, suspense novels (under the pseudonyms Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly), plays, poetry, memoir, and essays.

By: LISA WEIDENFELD | March 18, 2013

Boston, by the book: An abridged insider’s guide to Boston’s literary life

Plus: where to write, drink, and mingle with AWP’s best and brightest
Plus: where to write, drink, and mingle with AWP’s best and brightest

By: PHOENIX STAFF | March 06, 2013

Your essential AWP itinerary

Don't feel like shelling out $285 ($60 for students) for all-access entrance to this year's ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS & WRITING PROGRAMS (AWP) CONFERENCE?

By: PHOENIX STAFF | March 05, 2013

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Three authors take on the city’s literary culture
Boston, the birthplace of American literature, boasts three MFA programs, an independent creative-writing center, and more than a dozen colleges offering creative-writing classes.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | March 05, 2013

Incrementally more kind: George Saunders changes the world

George Saunders: satirist, humanist, and — after 20 years, four magisterial short story collections, a novella, and a book of essays — now a bestselling author.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | March 05, 2013

Interview: Cheryl Strayed on the sweet life

The Wild author is still Sugar underneath
Before she was CHERYL STRAYED, she was Cheryl Strayed: an accomplished essayist with a novel, Torch , under her belt and a lot of friends and admirers in the literary community.

By: THOMAS PAGE MCBEE | March 05, 2013

Interview: Ayana Mathis and her tribes

One of the most buzzed-about and acclaimed books of the new year since its publication last December, the Oprah Book Club selection The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Knopf) is Ayana Mathis's first novel.

By: LISA WEIDENFELD | February 22, 2013

Phreaking Ma Bell: Phil Lapsley's Exploding the Phone

Exploding the Phone is Phil Lapsley's exhaustive history of the phone-phreak phenomenon of the '60s and '70s.

By: LISA WEIDENFELD | February 20, 2013

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Scary monsters and super freaks

What if deceased presidents were reincarnated as horses in a belated lesson in humility?

By: LISA WEIDENFELD | February 13, 2013

Yo, Jonny! The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

Sometime after becoming a YouTube megastar and crashing into the cult of personality that has metastasized in contemporary society, Teddy Wayne's 11-year-old bubblegum idol Jonny Valentine is hanging out in his dressing room getting a blow job from a girl who doesn't even like his music.

By: SHARON STEEL | February 05, 2013

The Big Love Hurts: Valentine's Day press releases

Spoil the mood with terrible dates, familiar faces and sex toy surprises
Valentine's Day brings an enormous opportunity to squeeze money from the most lucrative demographics: the frustrated, the clingy, the lonely, and the stalky.

By: DAVID THORPE | February 05, 2013

In Memoriam: On the death of Jack McCarthy, a working-class poet

An unsung hero of modern poetry passed away last week.

By: B. DOLAN | January 30, 2013

Sweet bad dreams: Yoko Ogawa's latest book

What lingers like a nightmare?

By: CLEA SIMON | January 30, 2013

Jennifer Haigh's quiet lives

BOOKS
Jennifer Haigh's News from Heaven , a series of 10 interconnected short stories set in the fictional Bakerton, Pennsylvania, of her celebrated 2005 novel Baker Towers (it's subtitled "The Bakerton Stories"), stretches over much of the 20th century.

By: LISA WEIDENFELD | January 23, 2013