Prognosis: you’ve got twelve months left to live. The good news? If you’re literate, you could easily read a book a month. Therefore, it’s time to give up Grey’s Anatomy and escape Meredith’s constant, cliché, and contrived diatribes about life and actually consume a worthwhile use of the English language….
Tag: Blog
My Inconsistent Affair with Literature By: Parker Gregory Shpak
My relationship with literature has been inconsistent at best. As much as I would like to pass myself off as the prodigal son of the modern literati, heralding the return of the writer-artist to the public eye, it would be dishonest to posture as anything resembling that figure. When I…
The Inconvenience of Inspiration By: Mairead Loschi
Ever since I was young, inspiration has been my fickle friend. Let me set the scene: it is a late August evening, just creeping toward dusk. My sister and I are playing on the front lawn of my Grandma’s summer home. My mom remembers me rushing in through the sliding…
Fanfiction: Try It—No Wait, Hear Me Out! by Diana Koehm
I know what you’re thinking. Fanfiction. Aka poorly written smut by hormonal preteens. As a true lover of literature, I have no patience whatsoever for ill-written work. However, I refuse to condemn an entire community of writers based on the reputations of a few. If there’s anything I’ve learned by…
Podcasting and the Resurgence of the Oral Tradition by Diana Koehm
A hush falls over the clearing. The hunter’s voice rings with a metallic clang. The bodies huddled around the fireplace feel the blade pierce the beast’s hide as if it were their own. Before writing, there was word of mouth. Our humble literary blog, and the larger literature scene as…
Graduating as an English Major: An Open Letter to Myself Right Now By Therese Masotta
To The Current Me, This morning I woke up with you, like I always do, and it was early and you were just as confused as you were the night before you went to sleep, and everything seemed surreal as it always does. It’s the last week of classes and…
On Letting Go of Favorite Books by Rebecca Nelson
I have a bad habit of latching on to books that have had a great impact on me. There are shelves of books in my bedroom that I’ve read at least once, most of them three times or more. I also have a bookcase full of books I’ve never read,…
Exigency in Writing: CAConrad in Providence by Nicholas DiBenedetto
“A security guard asked, ‘What the fuck are YOU DOING?’ I replied, ‘I’M A POLLINATOR, I’M A POLLINATOR!!’” — CAConrad “Security Cameras and Flowers Dreaming the Elevation Allegiance” On the evening of Friday, April 22, I found myself driving a car full of undergraduates to Ada Books in Providence, Rhode…
On writing the teenage character by Asiya Haouchine
People give J.D. Salinger too much flak about his ability to write when it comes to Holden Caulfield of Salinger’s most famous novel, The Catcher in the Rye. When adults (and students) complain about Holden and discuss how annoying he is, I get why they might think that—Holden is whiny…
Revolutionizing Literature: Literary Magazines and the Digital Age by Alexandra Cichon
In the wee hours of the morning, with the DIAGRAM magazine tab open in my browser, I surf the magazine’s current issue, absorbing each pixel of avant-garde poems and clicking rapidly between diagrams. Besides my unequivocal love for the concept DIAGRAM pushes—“odd but good”— oozing from the crisp white and…