For the full essay, see it on The Toast. Originally published on August 19, 2014. --- I used to be a regular at the pet store on the second floor of my local mall, down by Sears. Whenever I had to go with
For the full essay, see it on The Rumpus. Originally published on August 18, 2014. --- Let me disclose two things up front. This past year I was an editorial intern at the Frances Goldin Literary Agency, working for, among others, Monica Byrne’s
For the full essay, see it on The Rumpus. Originally published on June 2, 2014. --- 1 Janet Malcolm’s latest book, a collection of her essays on artists and writers, is titled Forty-One False Starts after the opening profile on the artist David Salle.
Judith Thurman spoke about writing nonfiction – specifically biography and literary criticism – at Columbia this past Wednesday, and apparently we were very lucky to hear her since, according to sources, she rarely leaves her house. Ms. Thurman said a
Before I was a nonfiction writer in Columbia’s Graduate Writing Program, I was a student of Russian Language and Literature at Wellesley College. I started taking Russian 101 the fall of my first-year – sick of the Latin I could
For the full essay, see it on Fiction Advocate. Originally published on February 27, 2014. --- I met the other Elizabeth Bartels at a family reunion in New Jersey when I was in middle school. I had long been used to sharing my
For the full essay, see it on Vitamin W. Originally published on February 14, 2014. --- I went to MoMA PS1 the other day because I felt guilty. I have been living in New York for the better part of two years now
First, a confession: I never finished reading Elif Batuman’s essay collection, The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. The book came out my senior year of undergrad, when I was already drowning in Russian literature
I can’t pinpoint an exact moment when I decided I wanted to write. It was an idea regularly reinforced throughout my childhood, adolescence, and adult life: reading Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech for the first time, writing a letter
This just in: Ted Conover, nonfiction writer famous for his immersion and undercover journalist, is cooler than your dad. Sorry, Rich Bartels, I still love you very much, but last night at the Columbia Graduate Writing Program’s Nonfiction Dialogue, Ted