10178 results were found.

Meet Richard Cohen

East City Bookshop is proud to partner with DC Public Library for a conversation with Richard Cohen about his new book, Making History. This event will be held at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library. For more information on this event, visit the library's website. In conversation with library…

A Patriotic Pick: May 2022

Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here is one such title, suggested by Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello: The War for America, 1775-1783 by Piers Mackesy. Says military historian and professor emeritus…

Being There?

Prior to 2020, I was exhausted from attending conferences. This is difficult to explain to your spouse when you return home from a long weekend in New Orleans, wearily set your suitcases down, and complain how tired you are from sitting on panels, gossiping with friends, and spending hours at…

Authors on Audio: Mark K. Updegrove

Along with serving as president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation and presidential historian for ABC News, Mark K. Updegrove is the author of several books, including Baptism by Fire: Eight Presidents Who Took Office in Times of Crisis and The Last Republicans: Inside the Extraordinary Relationship Between George H.W.…

9th Hour Poetry Slam

A Busboys and Poetry Event hosted this week by Charity Blackwell, featuring Shelby Birch A poetry slam is a competitive event in which poets perform their work and are judged by members of the audience. Typically, the host or another organizer selects the judges, who are instructed to give numerical…

Regarding Mrs. Churchill

Most people agree that faith, hope, and charity are the cardinal virtues, but not Winston Churchill. He pronounced courage to be paramount “because it is the one human virtue that guarantees all the others.” Without his courage during WWII, Britain might’ve succumbed to oppression and tyranny, but by summoning his…

Children’s Book Roundup: May 2022

The Boy with Flowers in His Hair by Jarvis (Candlewick Press). “His name is David. He’s the boy with flowers in his hair, and he’s my best friend…He’s sweet and gentle. Just like his petals.” David is also fully accepted by the other kids in his class. So when —…

Reading My Roots

As a deracinated Korean-born child adopted into a white family, there are a lot of books that I read as an adult that I wish had been available to me growing up, such as translations of Korean authors and the works of Korean American essayists and novelists. None of these…

Marisa Renee Lee in Conversation with Jess Lee

Loyalty is excited to host Marisa Renee Lee and Jess Lee for Grief is Love: Living with Loss. This event will be held digitally via Crowdcast. Click here to register for the event with a donation of any amount of your choice. You can also order the book below to…

Romance Roundup: May 2022

May is my birthday month. There will be many book purchases made, followed by the excuse, “It’s my birthday!” This is either a cautionary tale or a brilliant life hack — you be the judge. In the meantime, here are the romance novels I’ve enjoyed recently. Happy birthday to me!…

Dispatch from Down Under

I’m in the middle of a three-month stay with my son and his family, who live in Sydney. It’s such a great excuse to read some Australian writers. Before arriving, I made a mental note to pick up Helen Garner’s new How to End a Story: Diaries 1995-1998. But on…

(My) Literary DC

Among travel literature, few habits inform the notion of being a “tourist in your hometown” like reading a guidebook to the place where you live. In February, Wildsam, a travel-guide brand for the Instagram age, published a companion for visiting the nation’s capital. Between the edition’s petal-pink covers lies a…

Meet Josh Funk

Join us as we welcome picture-book author Josh Funk for a library-themed book signing! We'll have copies of Lost in the Library and other Josh Funk titles available for purchase. Plus, we'll be taking preorders for My Pet Feet, out this summer! As always, we ask that partially and unvaccinated…

An Interview with Michele Herman

Award-winning writer Michele Herman is a columnist, writing instructor, editor, and poet, as well as a longtime columnist for the Village Sun in Greenwich Village, where she and her family live. She is also the author of two chapbooks — Just Another Jack: The Private Lives of Nursery Rhymes and…

7 Most Favorable Reviews in April 2022

Ever Green: Saving Big Forests to Save the Planet by John W. Reid and Thomas E. Lovejoy (W.W. Norton & Company). Reviewed by Christopher Lancette. “While much of the book focuses on practical solutions for conserving the great forests, Ever Green tantalizes readers with profound side trips, too. I found…

5 Most Popular Posts: April 2022

Diana Pabst Parsell’s review of A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS by Jennet Conant (Simon & Schuster). “Impressively, Conant manages to make the various storylines of this sprawling book coherent and engaging despite the galloping narrative style and thick layering of details. Even where the…

Who Judges the Justices?

Recent stories in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the New Yorker about Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni’s, political activities raise a serious question as yet unanswered. That’s because the Supreme Court’s current ethics rules have nothing to do with a justice’s wife’s right to…

John Waters in Conversation with Marion Winik

A hilariously filthy tale of sex, crime, and family dysfunction from the brilliantly twisted mind of John Waters, the legendary filmmaker and bestselling author of Mr. Know-It-All. Marsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She’s smart, she’s desperate,…

Tomorrow Is Independent Bookstore Day

Show your local indie some love on April 30th — and find your next favorite read in the process — by taking part in Independent Bookstore Day! Check out one of the excellent DMV-area outfits below, or peruse the internet’s anti-Amazon, Bookshop.org! What are you waiting for? You've got a…

Ready for Relaunch

Recently, the poet Allison Adair posted on Twitter: “Poets! Esp. those who published in 2020/21? Any tips for a joyful relaunch? Covid stole many more important things, but it also gobbled up my launch party & swanky book tour. Paperback version of ‘The Clearing’ is coming out in June. Any…

Do You Really Need an Agent?

Have you ever wanted to submit a manuscript to a publisher but saw that their policy read “no unsolicited manuscripts” or “agent submissions only”? The publishing industry is full of gatekeepers, and the literary agent is one of them. The agent’s function is to find the best manuscripts they can…

Plain(tive) Text

Double bassist Daniel Barbiero has spent decades thinking and writing about the interaction between music and other artforms and the places in which these cross-sections of time, space, and sound collide. His recently published essay collection, As Within So Without: & Other Writings, covers a wide-ranging slate of art-related topics,…

Authors on Audio: Lindsay M. Chervinsky

Presidential historian Lindsay M. Chervinsky is the author of multiple scholarly articles, columns, and editorials. Her first book, The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, was published in 2020 and recently came out in paperback. The work, says the Wall Street Journal, “helps us understand pivotal…

Cheryl Polote-Williamson in Conversation with Siobhan Davenport

Join us for a powerful book discussion and signing featuring author Cheryl Polote-Williamson. Cheryl will discuss her new book, The Art of Influence, with Siobhan Davenport, President and CEO of Critteron. Cheryl is a global leader who has successfully ushered 470 individuals into entrepreneurship. She is also the CEO and…

Authentic Identities

I’ve been paying a lot of attention lately to characters in novels who don’t share their author’s (visible) identity. I’m thinking specifically about when cisgender straight women write about queer communities. I recently came across this quote from Hanya Yanagihara in an interview she did with Filthy Dreams, and it…

Black Lambs and Sunflowers

It was at the end of the book, in the epilogue — the last 77 pages of the 1,100 published in two volumes in 1941 — that Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon hit me with full, unexpected emotional force. It had been a long road for this monumental…

On Poetry: April 2022

In April, the driest of winds kick up furiously in the high desert of Albuquerque, where I now spend much of the year. It’s a marked contrast from when I recently reunited with my wonderful DMV literary community. I left warm and sunny New Mexico for a cool, rainy Baltimore…

How to Handle a Narrative

Streaming TV series have brought a whole new dimension to filmed entertainment. The upgrade in cinematic quality has attracted movie stars and given screenwriters room to develop complex characters and plots. But this extra room is not always a good thing. Often, it seems to give those making the program…

Ben McGrath in Conversation with Evan Osnos

Covid-19 Information: Please note that East City Bookshop continuously monitors public health guidance to ensure the safety of customers, authors, and our staff and reserves the right to adjust in-person events. Masks and proof of vaccination are required for all attendees. For decades, Dick Conant paddled the rivers of America,…

An Interview with Bill Hutchins

After four decades spent living and working in the Washington, DC, area, architect Bill Hutchins and his wife relocated to her ancestral home in Vermont’s Green Mountain National Forest. It’s in that bucolic setting that Hutchins wrote his latest collection of poems and meditations, Dwelling: Learning to Love a Forest.…

Wandering the World

This is the second time in less than a year I’ve felt compelled by real-world events to write about refugees. First, the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in summer 2021 produced a panicked exodus of people unwilling or unable to live under the ruthless regime, where women are barred from working…

On Not Writing

I arrived in the District in 2019 in the grip of a five-year writer’s block. I hadn’t written since finishing my MFA in creative writing, with the exception of a brief spurt of writing brought on by a personal loss. If I’m honest, I was already experiencing resistance and avoidance…

My Most Touching Fee

Years ago, when I was representing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, I met Gerda Weissmann Klein, who died last week. She’d survived the horrors of imprisonment for six years in Nazi concentration camps. Her family lived in Bielsko, a Polish town near the Czech border, when the…

Bedtime Stories: April 2022

Alma Katsu: The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay. It’s always a gamble recommending horror novels to the general public. “I don’t read horror,” is what I hear most frequently when I tell people what I write, and I’m always tempted to argue back, “You probably have, you just don’t realize…

My Ekphrastic Journey

The fiction I love to read — and write — is rooted in place and driven by character. My novel-in-progress is set in southwestern Pennsylvania, near the old farm that has been our summer home for years. The specific prompt this time was a late-19th-century landscape of the region, a…

Janelle Monáe in Conversation with Kimberly Drew

At this in-person event (with a virtual attendance option), masks and proof of vaccination are required including a photo ID that matches the name on the vaccination card. Please review our health and safety protocols here. This program does not include a book signing. A limited number of autographed books…

The Washington Writers Conference Presents Christopher Gonzalez

Christopher Gonzalez is a queer Puerto Rican writer, author of the story collection I’m Not Hungry But I Could Eat, and a fiction editor at Barrelhouse magazine. Even better, he’s speaking at the 2022 Washington Writers Conference on May 13-14 in Rockville, MD! During “Out in the Open: LGBTQ Writing…

Authors on Audio: John Avlon

Journalist John Avlon may be best known as a political analyst and anchor on CNN, but he’s also an accomplished author of such books as Wingnuts: Extremism in the Age of Obama and Washington’s Farewell: The Founding Father’s Warning to Future Generations. His newest work is Lincoln and the Fight…

An Interview with Adrian Spratt

I met Adrian Spratt nearly 20 years ago, at a writing workshop led by novelist Lore Segal. The workshop was in Lore’s living room in her Upper West Side apartment; about a dozen of us sat in a large circle around her elegant presence. She rose from a deep armchair…

Children’s Book Roundup: April 2022

Luna Muna by Kellie Gerardi (author) and Allyson Wilson (illustrator) (Dragonfruit). “It was the perfect night, a million stars in the sky. Perfect for a future astronaut like me.” But what’s a budding cosmonaut to do when she wants to blast off to the heavens — and even wishes on…

The Montblanc Is Mightier…

For a brief time before the pandemic, my son, then 7, ran a pencil-sharpening business out of our apartment. At just five cents a sharpen, business was booming (if you consider a net revenue of $2.05 to be a viable business). The problem was, once our friends and neighbors marauded…

Alex Kershaw in Conversation with Kelly Kennedy

East City Bookshop is proud to partner with Hill Center DC for a discussion of New York Times bestselling author Alex Kershaw’s recently published book, Against All Odds, moderated by Kelly Kennedy, an award-winning journalist and former U.S. Army soldier. About Against All Odds Alex Kershaw’s Against All Odds: A…

A Patriotic Pick: April 2022

Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here is one such title, suggested by Ryan Cole, author of Light-Horse Harry Lee: The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero: This Hallowed Ground: A History of the Civil War by Bruce Catton. The Chicago Sun-Times…

Tackling Disparity in Divorce

There are so many women in the world doing courageous things who deserve a shout-out, but this column focuses on just one. In her new memoir, Raising the Bar, Ruth Rymer deconstructs how she went from bullied spouse to an attorney instrumental in establishing family law as California’s fourth certified…

Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Annette Gordon-Reed

The Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard, historian Annette Gordon-Reed is also the author of multiple books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. Her latest work is On Juneteenth, which our reviewer called “a thoughtful and affectionate meditation on the state [of Texas] in…

The Washington Writers Conference Presents Carlos Lozada

As the Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction book critic for the Washington Post, Carlos Lozada, author of What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era, obviously knows a thing or two about writing. And that’s why he’ll be moderating our keynote conversation between journalist/authors Susan Glasser and Peter…

Alka Joshi in Conversation with Kate Quinn

In New York Times bestselling author Alka Joshi's intriguing new novel, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, henna artist Lakshmi arranges for her protege, Malik, to intern at the Jaipur Palace in a tale rich in character, atmosphere, and lavish storytelling. Joshi was born in India and raised in the U.S…

An Interview with Oded Galor

Dr. Oded Galor is an economist, author, and the Herbert H. Goldberger Professor of Economics at Brown University. He is the founder of unified growth theory and has written extensively about the impact of human evolution, population diversity, and inequality on the process of development over most of human existence.…

7 Most Favorable Reviews in March 2022

Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam (W.W. Norton & Company). Reviewed by William Rice. “Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos is a jarring accomplishment. It’s a heroic attempt to explicate the essential nature of thinking that overturns assumptions,…

5 Most Popular Posts: March 2022

“It’s an All-Star Lineup!” “The 2022 Washington Writers Conference is thrilled to welcome you back in person on May 13-14! In addition to our one-on-one agent-pitch sessions, we’ll have an exciting array of panels covering everything from the business of writing to specialized craft workshops. Just who will be there?…

A Trail of Tears and Triumph

“April is the cruelest month,” wrote the poet T.S. Eliot, and for followers of Martin Luther King Jr., April 4, 1968, was the cruelest day. At 6:01 p.m. on that Thursday, the beloved preacher of nonviolence was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Hours later,…

Mia Sosa in Conversation with Nichole Perkins

East City Bookshop in partnership with Avon welcomes Mia Sosa with her new book, The Wedding Crasher, in conversation with Nichole Perkins. (Books will include a bookmark, art print, and notepad while supplies last. All customers who purchase tickets that include a book purchase will receive exclusive access to a…

Romance Roundup: April 2022

Winter is firmly behind us, and I’m looking forward to all that spring has to offer (except pollen; I don’t look forward to yellow-covered everything and the allergies that go along with it). This spring is exploding with exciting new romance novels that put fresh spins on favorite tropes and…

An Offer I Couldn’t Refuse

This is my annual Oscars column. Actually, it’s my first Oscars column. Who knows if I’ll write another? Obviously, the Oscars for 2022 have already been awarded. The only reason I’m writing this is because it also happens to be the 50th anniversary of “The Godfather,” a famous Academy Award-winning…

Meet Cathy Barrow

Books and bagels? Sign us up! Join Bards Alley Bookshop as we welcome cookbook author Cathy Barrow. She'll be signing copies of Bagels, Schmears, and a Nice Piece of Fish. If you're lucky, you might even snag a treat from our friends at Bobby's Bagel Cafe! As always, we ask…

The Washington Writers Conference Presents A’Lelia Bundles

Author and journalist A’Lelia Bundles earned high praise for On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker, a New York Times Notable Book and the inspiration for “Self Made,” a Netflix limited series starring Octavia Spencer. Bundles is now at work on her fifth book, The…

An Interview with Bruce Johnson

Over the course of more than four decades at Washington, DC, television station WUSA (Channel 9), Bruce Johnson earned 22 Emmys, was inducted into the Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame, and received many other honors. Not bad for a poor Black kid from Louisville whose early prospects were…

Amanda Oliver in Conversation with Meg Metcalf

Who are libraries for, how have they evolved, and why do they fill so many roles in our society today? Based on firsthand experiences from six years of professional work as a librarian in high-poverty neighborhoods of Washington, DC, as well as interviews and research, Overdue begins with Oliver's first…

An Ode to Joy (and Pain)

For those compelled to ponder how the past molds the experiences of the present, the powerful language of Saida Agostini’s first full-length collection of poetry, let the dead in, not only offers the opportunity to see and hear people’s interactions in her world, but to smell, taste, and feel their…

Abby Seiff in Conversation with Elizabeth Becker

An intimate account of one of the world’s most productive inland fisheries, Troubling the Water explores how the rapid destruction of a single lake in Cambodia is upending the lives of millions. The abundance of Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake helped grow the country for millenia and gave rise to the…

“DC Narratives”

Conventional wisdom dictates that you should “write what you know,” and what do local writers know better than Washington, DC? Our city is a fascinating blend of politics, culture, history, and power that has inspired countless works of literature. Why not let it inspire yours? Find out how during “DC…

A Conversation with Alex Segura

There was a lot of pressure on Alex Segura; there always is when an author is poised to publish their breakout novel. Segura had already achieved success with his award-winning short fiction and the five books in his Pete Fernandez mystery series, and he’d made a name for himself in…

Authors on Audio: Simon Read

Simon Read is a former journalist and the author of multiple works of nonfiction, including Winston Churchill Reporting: Adventures of a Young War Correspondent and Human Game: The True Story of the “Great Escape” Murders and the Hunt for the Gestapo Gunmen. His newest book is The Iron Sea: How…

In the Key of Eliot

In Middlemarch, Reverend Edward Casaubon is working on a grand theory. His theological research, Key to All Mythologies, aims to catalog the world’s legends. This sum of all mythology, he believes, will be a universal revelation. It’s a tall order. As the years tick by, the mythologies Casaubon studies prove…

David Wright Faladé in Conversation with Audrey Petty

Loyalty Bookstores and Harvard Book Store are excited to welcome David Wright Faladé and Audrey Petty for Black Cloud Rising! This event will be held digitally via Loyalty's Crowdcast. Click here to register for the event with a donation of any amount of your choice. You can also order the…

“Rule Breaker or Rank Amateur?”

Knowing the rules of grammar — and when to break them — can separate the good writers from the great. Elevate your work by attending the “Rule Breaker or Rank Amateur?” panel at the 2022 Washington Writers Conference on May 13-14 in Rockville, MD! It’s being led by Johns Hopkins…

On Poetry: March 2022

The explorations of origin, place, and belonging are major themes in contemporary poetry and allow poets to cross and remake boundaries, or rid themselves of any constrictions at all, creating new landscapes through language and form. It can create an important tension between poem and reader when the poet challenges…

Few Shouts, Many Murmurs

Wes Anderson’s new film, “The French Dispatch,” is a fanciful tribute to the journalism of yesteryear. Anderson purportedly based the editor’s character, played by Bill Murray, on the New Yorker’s first two editors, Harold Ross and William Shawn. In fact, he dedicated the film to them, as well as to…

An Interview with Barbara Quick

Barbara Quick and I met because we share a publisher, Regal House Publishing. I was so excited to read her What Disappears because it includes both Jewish themes and ballet, which I am also concerned with in my debut novel, Three Muses. What Disappears is Quick’s third novel, following Northern…

Children’s Book Roundup: March 2022

John’s Turn by Mac Barnett (author) and Kate Berube (illustrator) (Candlewick Press). It’s Sharing Gifts time at school, so “John prepared. He was hidden behind a big blue curtain. He unzipped his bag and changed into his clothes. He put on a white leotard. He put on black pants. He…

NoVa TEEN Book Festival

NoVa TEEN is the first and largest book festival of its kind celebrating young adult literature in the Northern Virginia/DC Metro area. NoVa TEEN is held annually in March at George C. Marshall High School in Falls Church, VA, but will be ALL VIRTUAL this year. Click here for more…

A Patriotic Pick: March 2022

Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here is one such title, suggested by Michael F. Bishop, a board member of the Abraham Lincoln Institute and former director of the National Churchill Leadership Center (NCLC) and executive director of the International Churchill Society: Lincoln…

“The Writer’s Life: A Primer”

Have you always wanted to be an author but can’t quite picture what the reality of it might look like? Then don’t miss “The Writer’s Life: A Primer,” one of the many panels on tap during the 2022 Washington Writers Conference on May 13-14 in Rockville, MD! During the session,…

A Poetics of Save Points

For this latest installment of “Nerd Volta,” I have asked the multi-award-winning poet, memoirist, scholar, and teacher Anthony Moll to write about the influence of video games on their collection, You Cannot Save Here, which won the 2022 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize. This was a chance to hear from someone…

Elizabeth Williamson in Conversation with Kara Swisher

Based on hundreds of hours of research, interviews, and access to exclusive sources and materials, Sandy Hook is Williamson’s landmark investigation of the aftermath of a school shooting, the work of Sandy Hook parents who fought to defend themselves, and the truth of their children’s fate against the frenzied distortions…

An Interview with Adriana Herrera

Adriana Herrera is an award-winning Afro-Caribbean author of contemporary romance whose new historical series, Las Léonas, launches in May with A Caribbean Heiress in Paris. Luz Alana Heith-Benzan, from Santo Domingo, is the gutsy heroine of the story, set during the Exposition Universelle in 1889. Luz visits the City of…

One Writer’s Stall

Several years ago, a student came to my small alternative high school in Baltimore after being hospitalized from an assault. He’d been struck with a brick that badly injured his eye and the bones around it. Moreover, the conflict this assault stemmed from remained live. Outside, going back and forth…

Nuevas Paginas con Lupita

Happy New Year! Yes, it’s a little late to say that, but this is my first column of 2022. Still, I get how annoying it is to be wished “Happy New Year” beyond the second week of January. It feels pointless — we all know it’s a new freaking year!…

Olivia A. Cole in Conversation with Tiffany D. Jackson and Nic Stone

Loyalty absolutely cannot wait to host Olivia A. Cole, Tiffany D. Jackson, and Nic Stone in conversation for the launch of The Truth about White Lies! This event is free to attend and will be held digitally via Crowdcast. Click here to register for the event. You can also order…

Romance Roundup: March 2022

I know spring doesn’t officially start for a couple more weeks, but I’m so ready to put the cold weather behind me and bask in the sunshine again. In the meantime, here are two romance novels that have warmed my heart (if not my cold, cold hands) recently. They both…

“We Are All Ukrainians”

When I was in college, I took a political science course on the Soviet Union and learned a lot about the various Soviet republics, including Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Later, when I was working as a journalist in Germany, one of the company executives who dealt often with the…

7 Most Favorable Reviews in February 2022

Architects of an American Landscape: Henry Hobson Richardson, Frederick Law Olmsted, and the Reimagining of America’s Public and Private Spaces by Hugh Howard (Atlantic Monthly Press). Reviewed by Bob Duffy. “Hugh Howard gets it marvelously right in Architects of an American Landscape, his joint biography of two Gilded Age luminaries.…

To Agent or Not to Agent?

You’ve finished your manuscript. Now what? Try to get an agent? Self-publish? Go the hybrid-press route? Don’t waste time guessing! Attend “To Agent or Not to Agent?” one of the many panels offered at the 2022 Washington Writers Conference on May 13-14 in Rockville, MD! During the panel, Rose Solari,…

5 Most Popular Posts: February 2022

Tara Laskowski’s review of The Maid: A Novel by Nita Prose (Ballantine Books). “The work that goes into an immaculate hotel room often goes unnoticed. One walks into the finished product and appreciates its elegant simplicity, everything crisp and delightful and new. This is how I feel about The Maid,…

P&P Live! Garrett Graff

In the early hours of June 17, 1972, a security guard named Frank Wills entered six words into the log book of the Watergate office complex that would change the course of history: 1:47 AM Found tape on doors; call police. The five ​men arrested and charged with attempted burglary…

An Interview with Taylor Harris

Full disclosure: Taylor Harris was in the first class I taught in the Writing Program at Johns Hopkins. I knew from day one, when I threw 16 carrots on the conference table and asked the students to take one and write a character description, that Taylor (who described her carrot…

Voices for Ukraine: Words Together, Worlds Apart

Amid the current catastrophe in Ukraine, a brutal invasion of a sovereign nation, it is more urgent than ever to listen to the voices of its people. While media provides overwhelming coverage, literature, poetry, and art are just as important for processing, coping, and surviving trauma. Hosts Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach…

16 Books about Russia

World events often outpace our ability to absorb or understand them, and that feels especially true right now. While the books below don’t deal with what’s unfolding in Ukraine, taken together, they paint a broad picture of Russia, the complex nation behind the current unfathomable, unprovoked aggression. To Break Russia’s…

You’re (Truly) Not Alone

I read Jenny Lawson’s Broken (in the Best Possible Way) at a time when I was feeling significantly broken myself (and not, alas, in the best possible way). The winter is almost always a drab, difficult time for me, and the past two years of pandemic living have involved even…

Lynn Painter in Conversation with Ali Hazelwood

Mr. Wrong Number is romance at its best — vivacious, hilarious, sexy, and genuine. The premise involves the main character, Olivia Marshall, receiving a text from a random wrong number which ends up turning into one of the hottest, most entertaining — albeit anonymous — relationships of her life. New…

Comforting Couplets

Insomnia has its uses, and those of us acquainted with the night are not alone. A friend posts austere, beautiful photographs of the moon with the hashtag #insomniamoon. Looking out at the sky in the dark hours, I think of others beside other windows. We keep company with mugs of…

Life in the Margins

The pen felt dangerous in my hand, which is strange because I often have a pen in my hand. But not when it’s poised to write in the margins of a library book. I felt like a graffiti artist caught with spray paint in a subway tunnel. Luckily, the impulse…

Pop-Up Lit Night: “Suspense & the Stradivarius”

Music and mystery meet in this unforgettable crossover event! Professional violinist and author Brendan Slocumb’s debut thriller, The Violin Conspiracy, follows Ray McMillian, a Black man with an incredible talent, but an unpromising future, who discovers his grandfather’s fiddle is a priceless Stradivarius and – against all expectations – takes…

Running on Empty

I’m plum out of ideas. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I find that there is only one thing to do: Open a computer file that hasn’t been opened in eons and see what’s there. It’s exactly what I did recently when I realized this very column was…

Kink

Kink

A Conversation with Elle Cosimano

Join Curious Iguana for a virtual author chat with Edgar-Award nominee Elle Cosimano for the release of Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead — the hilarious and heart-pounding followup to Finlay Donovan is Killing It. Register here. Purchase a copy of Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead through Curious Iguana’s site and…

A Maestro & Mentor

The first violin part of Dvořák’s 8th Symphony is, academically speaking, gnarly. Like the big waves that surfers ride on the West Coast, the Czech composer’s notes rise into the stratosphere and demand fear and respect — and lots and lots of practice. Even with that practice, I struggled. A…

On Poetry: February 2022

February is a strange month. It’s our shortest, and one fraught with the tension between winter and spring. It is also Black History Month, and as with other dedicated timeframes to “celebrate” a particular marginalized culture, I find it a double-edged blade because it still entails the majority doing the…

Love, Sitcom-Style

I wanted to write about love for Valentine’s Day. And although Jenny Pentland’s This Will Be Funny Later isn’t a romance, it is a story about both heart and heartbreak. In it, she shares the intimate account of how she struggled in the celebrity shadow of her mother, Roseanne Barr,…

“What Editors Are Looking For”

Ever wonder how to get out of the slush pile? Or what makes a compelling query letter? Find out during the “What Editors Are Looking For” panel at the 2022 Washington Writers Conference on May 13-14 in Rockville, MD! The panel will feature Gargoyle Magazine’s Richard Peabody, the Washington Post’s…

Gal Beckerman in Conversation with Anthony Doerr

We tend to think of revolutions as loud: frustrations and demands shouted in the streets. But the ideas fueling them have traditionally been conceived in much quieter spaces, in the small, secluded corners where a vanguard can whisper among themselves, imagine alternate realities, and deliberate about how to achieve their…

An Interview with James McGrath Morris

James McGrath Morris’ recently released Tony Hillerman: A Life has been named a finalist for an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Five previous nonfiction books have won a fistful of honors and prizes. He also founded Biographers International Organization and was a leading member of…

“The Crisis in Book Review”

Interested in reviewing books or just learning more about the process? Join local authors, critics, editors, and other members of the literary community Feb. 22-26 for Day Eight’s annual arts-journalism conference, this year focused on book reviews! The free virtual event includes workshops, panels, and two keynote sessions. Speakers include…

Yamile Saied Méndez in Conversation with Lilliam Rivera

Loyalty is delighted to welcome Yamile Saied Méndez and Lilliam Rivera to celebrate the paperback release of Furia! This event is free to attend and will be held digitally via Crowdcast. ABOUT THE BOOK In Rosario, Argentina, Camila Hassan lives a double life. At home, she is a careful daughter,…

A Patriotic Pick: February 2022

Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here is one such title, suggested by Jon Parrish Peede, former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities: Home Country by Ernie Pyle. “This book is a collection of [Pyle’s] stunning newspaper columns as he traveled…

Pyre

Pyre

Of Inhuman Bondage

Colson Whitehead is to American literature what the Rolls-Royce is to automobiles: revered and unrivaled. Having published eight novels, two books of nonfiction, and numerous essays and short stories, the 52-year-old writer has won a MacArthur “genius” grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Booker Prize, the National Book Award, two Pulitzers,…

Everybody’s a Critic!

I have written 26 thrillers and mysteries, all self-published. They have garnered hundreds upon hundreds of reviews, mostly from Amazon Kindle readers. Lest you have the impulse to shout “WOW!” I should point out that many of my peers have thousands of reviews for far fewer books. And like most…

The Washington Writers Conference Presents Laura Hazan

A librarian at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore and a novelist, Laura Hazan is also chair of the 2022 Washington Writers Conference, which takes place May 13-14 in Rockville, MD. Here are some of her thoughts on this year’s event. How long have you been involved with the…

Jason Epstein: An Appreciation

The death last week of publishing giant Jason Epstein, 93, merited a full-page obituary in the New York Times. It was written by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, the late editor of the New York Times Book Review, who himself died in 2018 at age 84. Italics at the bottom noted that William…

David O. Stewart in Conversation with Jack Farrell

A fascinating and illuminating account of how George Washington became the dominant force in the creation of the United States of America, from award-winning author David O. Stewart. David O. Stewart turned to writing after a career practicing law in Washington, DC, defending accused criminals and challenging government actions as…

An Interview with K.E. Flann

How to Survive a Human Attack: A Guide for Werewolves, Mummies, Cyborgs, Ghosts, Nuclear Mutants, and Other Movie Monsters, is K.E. Flann’s answer to The Zombie’s Survival Guide. In her view, it’s not humans who need saving; we’re the problem. Indeed, a staggering 100 percent of premature deaths of werewolves…

Sincerity & Truth

“How many ways can a story seduce you into reading it?” – Alice McDermott, What About the Baby? In “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost spoke of two paths diverging in a yellow wood. In hindsight, choosing one over the other made all the difference to the speaker’s life. When…

Isolation and Accountability

When I started writing Spring, the first thing I did was isolate myself. Weekends were spent holed up in my childhood bedroom, eking out page after page in lieu of a social life. Some friendships took a hit as I ignored calls mid-sentence. It was hard to explain that, yes,…

Romance Roundup: February 2022

It’s February, which means romance is in the air — whether we like it or not. I’ve come to realize that not everyone does. In fact, some people are downright snide when I mention my love of all things romantic. But love stories are life stories, and they can teach…

Jonathan Greenblatt in Conversation with Jodi Rudoren

As CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Jonathan Greenblatt has made it his mission to demonstrate how antisemitism, racism, and other insidious forms of intolerance can destroy a society, taking root as quiet prejudices but mutating over time into horrific acts of brutality. In It Could Happen Here: Why America…

7 Most Favorable Reviews in January 2022

Her Name Is Knight by Yasmin Angoe (Thomas & Mercer). Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski. “Her Name Is Knight is more than just another thriller in a glutted genre; it spotlights the often unspoken and grim reality of human trafficking and unflinchingly details the horrors of grief, loss, and oppression many…

Why You Should Have a Newsletter

Right now, it’s newsletters. Simply put, one of the best ways for a writer to reach readers — aside from, you know, writing books — is through newsletters. People miss social media posts, are reluctant to attend in-person events and weary of virtual ones, and word-of-mouth is chancy. And so…

It’s an Honor to Celebrate Marita Golden

We’re excited to announce that author, activist, and teacher Marita Golden will receive our Lifetime Achievement Award during the 2022 Washington Writers Conference on May 14th in Rockville, MD! Past honorees include Grace Cavalieri, Kitty Kelley, and Eugene L. Meyer. The award is given annually to an author who has…

5 Most Popular Posts: January 2022

Daniel de Visé’s review of The Hag: The Life, Times, and Music of Merle Haggard by Marc Eliot (Hachette Books). “If you’re a country fan, you know all about Merle, performer of 37 number-one hits and author of more bona fide country classics than maybe anyone else of the modern…

Lindsey Vonn in Conversation with Angela Duckworth

A fixture in the American sports landscape for almost 20 years, Lindsey Vonn is a legend. With a career that spanned a transformation in how America recognizes and celebrates female athletes, Vonn — who retired in 2019 as the most-decorated American skier of all time — was in the vanguard…

An Interview with Elizabeth Bruce

A longtime writer, actor, and playwright in the DC area, Elizabeth Bruce is also author of the novel And Silent Left the Place, which won the Washington Writers’ Publishing House’s Fiction Award and ForeWord Magazine’s Bronze Fiction Prize. Although originally published in 2007, the book was rereleased by WWPH in…

Children’s Book Roundup: January 2022

Brrr! It’s been one heckuva cold January! Luckily, there are plenty of terrific new kids’ books to enjoy from the toasty comfort of the couch (or pillow fort) while Old Man Winter does his worst outside. Here are three good ones to explore. They’re very different from each other but…

Announcing the Adoptee Literary Festival

It started with a tweet. The tweet got 101 likes, which is a lot for me. But actually, as every adoptee who has ever tried to find her origin story knows, there’s always a backstory to the story. So, maybe this story started in late 2018, when the poet Marci…

Kristen R. Lee in Conversation with J. Elle

A striking debut novel about racism on elite college campuses. Fans of Dear White People will embrace this activist-centered contemporary novel about a college freshman grappling with the challenges of attending an elite university with a disturbing racist history, which may not be as distant as it seems. Savannah Howard…

Jane’s Heir

When Charlotte Brontë’s novel Villette first appeared in print, George Eliot raved, “Villette, Villette, have you read it? It is a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre.” What surprises me about Villette (I first read it to my daughter many years ago, and most recently, last month for a…

Meet Susan Glasser and Peter Baker

We’re thrilled to announce that Susan Glasser, a staff writer for the New Yorker and a CNN global-affairs analyst, and Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times and an MSNBC political analyst, will deliver the keynote address at our 2022 Washington Writers Conference on May 13-14…

An Interview with Mic Nickels

Mic Nickels grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, just up the street from where I spent my early years in West Hartford. When we got in touch to set up an interview, I couldn't help but reminisce about our old stomping grounds. There was the annual Italian Festival, where, other than…

Wajahat Ali and Spencer Ackerman in Conversation with Jenn White

“Go Back to Where You Came From. Wajahat Ali and Spencer Ackerman on the War on Terror, Trumpism, and American Identity.” Journalist and Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali grew up searching for brown superheroes. Pop culture portrayed people like him as goofy sidekicks, shop owners with funny accents, or sweaty…

Etan Thomas in Conversation with Yamiche Alcindor

Police Brutality and White Supremacy demands accountability and justice for those responsible for and impacted by police violence and terror. It offers practical solutions to work against the promotion of white supremacy in law enforcement, Christianity, early education, and across the public sphere. Etan Thomas, a former 11-year NBA player,…

Anime Film Club

One of the pandemic rituals my spouse took up was rewarding herself once a month by purchasing a Studio Ghibli film. Even though most of the catalog is available via HBO Max, she wanted to own the discs and have the freedom to watch at her leisure. She began with…

Authors on Audio: Margaret Renkl

A contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, Margaret Renkl is also the author of two essay collections, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss and Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South. Publishers Weekly calls the latter “a well-written collection for…

Bernardine Evaristo in Conversation with Dana A. Williams

Join Loyalty Bookstores and DC Public Library for a special virtual event for Manifesto with Bernardine Evaristo and Dana A. Williams! This event will be held digitally via Crowdcast. Click here to register for the event with a donation of any amount of your choice or you can order the…

An Interview with Lauri Fitz-Pegado

Dancing in the Dash: My Story of Empowerment, Diplomacy, and Resilience welcomes the reader to Lauri Fitz-Pegado’s marvelous adventure. Through her work in cultural and commercial diplomacy and her love and skill in the art of ballet, she was fortunate enough to live, work, and dance in many countries. Her…

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