RFK: His Words for Our Times
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Amanda Wakes Up
Autumn of the Black Snake
In The Age of Innocence — Edith Wharton’s 1921 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel I scavenged at a Little Free Library though I already owned three copies — the city of Baltimore is mentioned six times. In the references, Wharton makes clear that the Queen City of the Patapsco is a fine…
Since the 1980s the number of children in the U.S. raised by queer-identified households has risen from a few thousand to some six million. While gay parenting has gotten increasing attention, little has been paid to the experiences of children of lesbian mothers and gay fathers. Aiming to represent “every…
Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors, and the Quest for a Cure to Childhood Leukemia
Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors, and the Quest for a Cure to Childhood Leukemia
When the Center Held: Gerald Ford and the Rescue of the American Presidency
When the Center Held: Gerald Ford and the Rescue of the American Presidency
Some novelists are more autobiographical than others, but most avail themselves of details and observations taken from their own lives. A three-haired, dimpled mole that shows up on the face of a Russian mobster might be based on the blemish on a favorite aunt’s neck, or the peculiar hiss that…
June 2018 Exemplars: Poetry Reviews by Grace Cavalieri
Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God by Tony Hoagland. Graywolf Press. 88 pages. The Gun My Sister Killed Herself With by Daniel Lawless. Salmon Poetry. 80 pages. Night Farming in Bosnia by Ray Keifetz. Bitter Oleander Press. 64 pages. Aileron by Geraldine Connolly. Terrapin Books. 102 pages. All That…
My Girls: A Lifetime with Carrie and Debbie
My Girls: A Lifetime with Carrie and Debbie
Meet the Prescott family: a bright and enigmatic mix of characters who struggle together and pick their way through the different perilous minefields of Flushing, Queens, during the Vietnam War era. At the center of this story is a boy becoming a man, simultaneously surrounded and set ablaze by his…
An Interview with James Hankins
Your new novel, A Blood Thing, starts with the governor of Vermont being blackmailed into pardoning a felon. Unfortunately, the pardon backfires and makes the governor’s situation worse. Might there be a lesson in there somewhere for our current president, or is that wishful thinking? Well, I’m not sure what…
Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance
Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance
Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian
Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian
The glasses are empty, or mostly, and legs are outstretched as the conversation spools out. The party is nearly over, and the host looks on in satisfaction. “We began to believe the night would not end. Someone was saying the music was over and no one had noticed. Then someone…
Claire Messud in Conversation with Mary Kay Zuravleff
Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace, the quiet town of Royston, Massachusetts. But as the two girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put…
Tough Enough
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
The Captives: A Novel
Sunscreen? Check. Towel? Check. Adult beverage? CHECK! What’s the only thing missing from your pool bag? The perfect book! But rather than tell you our favorite beach reads, we want to know yours. Email [email protected] with the title of your fave summertime story, and you just may see it in…
We are all readers and that means we don’t just look at (or listen to) books, but also news. Having worked as a journalist for more than four decades, I feel obligated to weigh in on the subject of fake news. Fake news is not new, of course. It’s always…
The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations
The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations
A.M. Homes in Conversation with Maureen Corrigan
Imagine going out on your weekly shopping trip and being nominated for president by the other customers at the big box store. Or attending a conference on genocide(s), running into an old friend, and reconnecting over ancient traditions. With her signature humor, incisive satire, and compassion, Homes takes the unlikely…
Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude
Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude
5 Most Popular Posts: May 2018
Talmage Boston’s review of The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels by Jon Meacham. “Anyone who succeeds in condensing and deriving lessons from the guts of American history in fewer than 300 pages is demonstrating synthesizing powers bordering on the supernatural. Such is the achievement [here].” “#Cockygate”…
As any author would tell you, writing a book is difficult business. For Rachel Lyon, her debut novel, Self-Portrait with Boy, was approximately five years in the making. Lyon has had several short stories published, but tackling a full-fledged novel about a young artist who finds herself having to make…
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays
Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire
Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire
After our son was born, my wife and I divided up our schedules pretty rigorously, specifically to avoid having to put Dashiell in daycare immediately, but also to maintain sanity generally, to avoid our days spiraling into a mess. Tara worked then and still works more conventional hours, but being…
Writers LIVE: Meet Darnell Moore:
When Darnell Moore was fourteen years old, three boys from his neighborhood tried to set him on fire. They cornered him while he was walking home from school, harassed him because they assumed he was gay, and poured a jug of gasoline on him. He escaped, but just barely. It…
Knowing the Score
The Water Kingdom
Summer lovin’, it happened so fast… Summer is upon us, and this month’s roundup includes some steamy romantic suspense and heartening contemporary romance. I admit, I love stories that combine danger and passion, but I enjoy a charming small-town romance, too. For June, I’m highlighting the first books in three…
Wait, Blink: A Novel
That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) about Working Together by Joanne Lipman (William Morrow). Reviewed by Salley Shannon. “Men of goodwill, you can stop quivering despite all the #MeToo in the air. Your guidebook is at hand. Joanne Lipman, until recently…
My husband and I live in a relatively small house with few interior doors. I have an office in the basement where I do his and my business paperwork (yes, I’m the unpaid secretary of one business, president and sole employee of another), and other un-fun things like taxes and…
Tattered Banners: A Life in Imperial Russia
Tattered Banners: A Life in Imperial Russia
7 Reasons to Attend the Writing Intensive at St. John’s College
On Saturday, June 9th, the fourth annual Writing Intensive at St. John’s College will give attendees many sources of inspiration. Why should you go? A writing conference like the Intensive is a one-day event where you can choose from a menu of topics and learn from other well-published, critically acclaimed,…
Most accounts of John Brown’s October 1859 raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry focus on Brown, his radical plan to spark an armed slave revolt, and his execution for treason. The fates of Brown’s 18 accomplices are often overlooked. Meyer, a former longtime Washington Post reporter and editor,…
Tesla: Inventor of the Modern
An Interview with Corinne Sullivan
In Corinne Sullivan’s debut novel, Indecent, young teacher Imogene Abney gets the opportunity of her life when she’s offered a position at the Vandenberg School for Boys, a prestigious prep school in Westchester, NY. Imogene, who has always been insecure around people, men especially, has been fascinated with the privileged…
Mad Boy: An Account of Henry Phipps in the War of 1812
Mad Boy: An Account of Henry Phipps in the War of 1812
Reader, is it hot in here? Had I known in advance Jane Eyre would blast my blue stockings off with the intensity of Tsar Bomba, I would have selected it for a colder month instead of during the urgent and renewed stirrings of May. Next to Moby-Dick, Jane Eyre is…
The Perfect Mother: A Novel
Since We Fell
Village
The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America’s Unknown Soldier and WWI’s Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home
Identity Crisis: The Work of Philip Roth
[Editor's note: In honor of the late Philip Roth, we repost here a thought-provoking essay by Helene Meyers.] Emma Green of the Atlantic started a firestorm recently with the article “Are Jews White?” Taking for granted that Ashkenazi Jews have assimilated to whiteness, Green used the white Jewish question to…
Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad & Criminal in 19th-Century New York
Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad & Criminal in 19th-Century New York
Join us for a book talk and discussion with John Lawrence, author of The Class of '74: Congress After Watergate and The Roots of Partisanship. In November 1974, following the historic Watergate scandal, Americans went to the polls determined to cleanse American politics. Instead of producing the Republican majority foreshadowed…
In a recent column in this space, I bragged about my avoidance of the dreaded “writers block,” an affliction which apparently leaves some authors staring at their computer screens in a paralytic trance, much as if they have been hit with a curare-tipped dart. This literary catatonia leaves them unable…
Philip Roth, the iconic American author of such classics as Portnoy’s Complaint, The Human Stain, The Plot Against America, and American Pastoral, died late last night in New York City. He was 85. A pillar of 20th-century American literature, Roth often wrote — with great wit — about life as…
War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence
War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence
Erin Duffy may have started out in finance, but she always knew she wanted to end up on the bestseller list. Here, she discusses her new novel, Regrets Only, which explores what happens when a woman’s “perfect” marriage comes crashing down and her closest friends must build her back up.…
1983: Reagan, Andropov, and a World on the Brink
1983: Reagan, Andropov, and a World on the Brink
The Judge Hunter: A Novel
GRACE IN DARKNESS: A Panel of DC Metro Women Writers
Join us as we welcome seven of the DC Metro area's finest women writers as they share from Volume VIII of Grace & Gravity, an anthology series founded by Richard Peabody to highlight exceptional fiction written by talented local women. This is the first volume of the series edited by…
Before you begin reading, take a look at the various designs you see at this link. The images, the practical designs anyone born in the last century would recognize as “modern,” are the works (mostly) of R. Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi. Please note that, among the first images at…
Carrie Johnson: Aside from family and friends, reading is the great joy of my life. I'm an only child who spent a lot of time with books, magazines, and newspapers as a kid. And that habit has followed me to Washington. I subscribe to the print versions of the New…
Jimmy Buffett
Public defender in New York City by day, award-winning author Sergio de la Pava’s new novel, Lost Empress, is coming this spring from Pantheon Books. One of The Millions’ “Most Anticipated Books of 2018,” LOST EMPRESS is a meaty, funny, and romantic novel, which takes place in NY and NJ…
Ararat
Middle-Grade Roundup: May 2018
Dear World: A Syrian Girl's Story of War and Plea for Peace (Simon & Schuster) By Bana Alabed Recommended for ages 12+ You may know Bana Alabed by her tweets for peace in her home of war-torn Syria. In this autobiography, she gives day-to-day details of what it’s like to…
Hadrian’s Wall
Pop-Up Magazine is a live magazine created for a stage, a screen, and a live audience. Contributors, who range from Oscar-winning filmmakers to bestselling authors, tell reported, never-before-told, multimedia stories. Plus, our musical collaborator, Magik*Magik Orchestra, scores the stories onstage. We end the night gathered around the bar, performers and…
First Person: A Novel
I never thought Malice Domestic, the annual fan convention for traditional mysteries written in a similar vein to Agatha Christie, was for me. For one thing, I don't write mysteries. That's a big one. For another, my work probably falls under the “hard-boiled” label, which may be inaccurate, but it’s…
A scholar and journalist based in St. Louis, Kendzior was alert to the struggles of America’s disaffected heartland well before the 2016 election. Writing on income disparity, labor exploitation, racism, xenophobia, and other conditions of the post-employment economy, Kendzior so acutely identified the conditions that led to Trump’s victory that…
May 2018 Exemplars: Poetry Reviews by Grace Cavalieri
The Known Universe by Terence Winch. Hanging Loose Press. 112 pages. Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl by Diane Seuss. Graywolf Press. 120 pages. The End Of Chiraq: a Literary Mixtape, edited by Javon Johnson and Kevin Coval. Intro and outro by Javon Johnson. Preface by the…
Fum
An Interview with Leslie Pietrzyk
One of Leslie Pietrzyk's many talents as a writer is an ability to capture a scene in all its mundane and minute detail. This extraordinary attention infuses her prose with a realness and immediacy that's literary catnip to a reader. At turns shattering, hilarious, and deeply profound — sometimes all…
The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World
It’s Time for the Gaithersburg Book Festival!
The Gaithersburg Book Festival is a celebration of the written word and its power to enrich the human experience. Its mission is to foster an interest in reading, writing and literary conversation. Since its inception in 2010, the festival has quickly become one of the nation’s top literary events, attracting…
Talk & Signing: Melissa Scholes Young and Andrea Jarrell
Join us as Andrea Jarrell reads from her debut memoir, I’m the One Who Got Away, and Melissa Scholes Young reads from her debut novel, Flood, winner of the Best Book Award in Literary Fiction. About I’m the One Who Got Away: From a Starred Kirkus Review: “...reminiscent of Joyce…
I woke up one morning to find my Facebook and Twitter feeds full of #cockygate outrage. What’s #cockygate, you ask? Well, a romance writer by the name of Faleena Hopkins submitted paperwork to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (U.S. PTO) to trademark the word “cocky.” Surprisingly, it was granted,…
Writers don’t receive thanks very often, but expressing gratitude to them was one of the first things journalist, author, and former CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer said in his keynote speech last Saturday at the 2018 Washington Writers Conference in College Park, Maryland. “Keep doing what you’re doing,” he told…
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills: A Novel
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills: A Novel
How to Be a Stoic
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Thomas E. Ricks, now in paperback, a dual biography of Winston Churchill and George Orwell, two icons who preserved democracy from the threats of authoritarianism. No one would have predicted that by the end of the 20th century Churchill and Orwell would…
Where the Water Goes
The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made
The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made
11th Hour Poetry Slam Hosted by 2Deep
A Busboys and Poetry Event. The 11th Hour Poetry Slam offers an opportunity for poetry lovers to enjoy the competitive art of late-night performance poetry! Enjoy two rounds of high intensity poetry, with the audience choosing a winner. Join us for an alternative way to spend your Friday night. A…
When I was ready to become serious about being a novelist, I thought that all I needed was a room of my own where I could write without distraction. My husband and I moved from the biggest city in the U.S. to a small town in a dusty and isolated…
Cloudbursts: Collected and New Stories
Cloudbursts: Collected and New Stories
The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels
The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels
Journalism is in crisis, with traditional sources of news under siege, a sputtering business model, a resurgence of partisanship, and a persistent expectation that information should be free. Covering America: A Narrative History of a Nation's Journalism places the current crisis in historical context, showing how it is only the…
An Interview with Alice Feeney
In keeping with the trend in contemporary fiction of the unreliable narrator, novelist Alice Feeney, in her debut, Sometimes I Lie, shows why this literary technique never ceases to enthrall readers. The plot revolves around a woman, Amber Reynolds, who, after a horrible accident, is left in a coma. But…
That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) about Working Together
That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) about Working Together
American University junior Tess Stewart leaned in as she asked her next question, “I consider some of your writing ‘art as advocacy.’ Do you?” I smiled at the young woman sitting across from me in Davenport Coffee Shop. After writing for nearly 20 years, I was the interviewee for an…
Rome: A History in Seven Sackings
Rome: A History in Seven Sackings
It would be hard pinpoint the earliest rape recorded in literature. Sexual assault in the Hebrew Bible? Yup. In Greek mythology? Of course. In Homer? Kidnapped trophy women are central to The Iliad. But victims of sexual assault have also used the pen to fight back, at first obliquely as…
Loan Sharks
A fearless and powerful writer, Kushner made her literary debut with Telex from Cuba, a vivid look at the lives of Americans in Havana on the eve of the 1958 revolution. Her follow-up, The Flamethrowers, was an incandescent story of a woman infatuated by motorcycles and art. Her new novel…
Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire: A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character
Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire: A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character
5 Most Popular Posts: April 2018
The Washington Writers Conference. DC’s premier authorial event (featuring Bob Schieffer, Alice McDermott, E.J. Dionne, John A. Farrell, Kathy MacMillan, Peter Cozzens, Caroline Kitchener, and others) is upon us! Click here to sign up RIGHT NOW or register tomorrow morning (5/5) at the door! Terry Zobeck’s review of Fools and…
Tiger Woods
April showers bring May flowers — and a bevy of new romance novels! Love is in the air in this month’s reviewed books, which feature high-school sweethearts and oil-industry rivals, tenderhearted dog rescuers and savvy entrepreneurs. ***** Love and Other Words (Gallery Books) by the pair of authors known as…
The Mars Room: A Novel
Most thrillers and mysteries are deadly serious affairs, almost by definition. Often the fate of the world is at stake, or, at the very least, the tracking down of a murderer who has violently killed a fellow human being. No laughing matter, such events. The master of the thriller genre,…
The Price of the Haircut: Stories
The Price of the Haircut: Stories
Go “Through the Wormhole” during our panel featuring sci-fi scribes Tara Campbell (TreeVolution), Nik Korpon (The Rebellion's Last Traitor), Meg Eden (Post-High School Reality Quest), and Kathy MacMillan (Sword and Verse). It’s just one of the many out-of-this-world events happening at the Washington Writers Conference on May 4-5 in College…
You're not going to miss your chance to hear from greats like Bob Schieffer, Alice McDermott, E.J. Dionne, John A. Farrell, Sherry Harris, Delancey Stewart, Caroline Kitchener, Paul Dickson, and an all-star lineup featuring many, many others, are you? We didn't think so! Register NOW for this weekend's Washington Writers…
An Interview with Jeffrey C. Stewart
The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart is the immensely readable biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance. Locke was the first African-American Rhodes Scholar, earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard, and studied philosophy at the University of Berlin with, among many, the…
You Can Stop Humming Now: A Doctor’s Stories of Life, Death, and in Between
You Can Stop Humming Now: A Doctor’s Stories of Life, Death, and in Between
Here's a confession: I listen more to books than I read them. My husband, Art, reads aloud to me most nights. We are currently tackling Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op stories and the occasional H.P. Lovecraft story. We don’t watch much television, but we do work our way through some hefty…
Curious about “Political Books in the Age of Trump”?
Wonder how best to write about our, um, unconventional president? Find out from John A. Farrell (Richard Nixon: The Life), Laurence Leamer (The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan), David Litt (Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years), and E.J. Dionne (One Nation After Trump:…
Robin
Rising Star
Learn from the “Women of Crime”
Can’t get enough of those crime novels? Then you won’t want to miss our “Women of Crime” panel at this year’s Washington Writers Conference! You’ll hear from Donna Andrews (the Meg Langslow Mystery series), Colleen Shogan (Calamity at the Continental Club), Sherry Harris (Sarah Winston Garage Sale mysteries), and Maya…
The American electoral system is clearly failing — more horrifically in the 2016 presidential election than ever before. In It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics, David Faris expands on his popular series for “The Week” to offer party leaders and supporters…
Arnie
The Eight Mountains: A Novel
Celebrate National Poetry Month!
A Busboys and Poets in-house series! LIVE! from Busboys is an open mic talent showcase that offers a platform for all performers, not just poets. Whether you are a musician, comedian, dancer, actor, magician or any other type of performer, we want to see what you got! Come out and…
The Promise and the Dream: The Untold Story of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy
The Promise and the Dream: The Untold Story of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy
Volunteering: The Gift that Keeps on Giving
If you’ve spent more than 20 seconds on the Independent’s website in the last month or two, you may have noticed that our sixth annual Washington Writers Conference is coming up next week. (We tend to mention it. Frequently.) The Independent is a nest of book lovers, both from the…
Happiness: A Novel
Eager to learn the secrets of penning a story that readers can’t put down? You’ll hear 'em during our “Writing a Page-Turner” panel at this year’s Washington Writers Conference on May 4-5th in College Park, MD! Moderated by the Independent’s president, Salley Shannon, the panel features authors Delancey Stewart (Without…
Jackie, Janet & Lee: The Secret Lives of Janet Auchincloss and Her Daughters Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill
An Interview with Nathaniel Philbrick
With apologies to Thomas Wolfe, for author Nathaniel Philbrick, going home again is less about a place and more about a time. Like an object in the ocean he so loves, Philbrick has found a relatively obscure 25-year-old book of his resurface and take him back to a point that…
The first woman to lead either party in the Georgia General Assembly, the first African American to lead in the House of Representatives, and now a candidate in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race, Abrams knows a lot about conventional skills like networking, persistence, and the value of mentors. She also…
Summer Hours at the Robbers Library: A Novel
Summer Hours at the Robbers Library: A Novel
The year 1853 was a good one in the literary anglosphere. Charlotte Brontë gave us Villette, Dickens completed Bleak House, and Herman Melville published his multi-layered novella Bartleby, the Scrivener, which readers have admired and puzzled over ever since. But the most astounding book that year was Clotel: or, The…
The Icon Hunter
Cannibalism
Celebrated author Elisabeth Hyde earned critical acclaim for her last two novels, In the Heart of the Canyon and The Abortionist’s Daughter. Now Hyde returns with Go Ask Fannie, an unforgettable tale about strong-willed people who make hard choices and big mistakes before learning that love and forgiveness are the…
West: A Novel
One danger in writing a column as long as I have is that I tend to repeat myself. One danger in writing a column as long as I have is…wait, that’s not what I mean! I’m talking about topics. There are only a few topics related to writing that really…
Memphis Rent Party: The Blues, Rock & Soul in Music’s Hometown
Memphis Rent Party: The Blues, Rock & Soul in Music’s Hometown
This month’s romance roundup features contemporary and paranormal romance and military romantic suspense. There are firefighters, soldiers, a librarian, a couple of entrepreneurs, an IT expert, an heiress, and more, proving that love is a universal need — and my taste in romance novels is eclectic. ***** Hurts to Love…
Waiting for Tomorrow: A Novel
The Washington Writers Conference Presents E.J. Dionne
E.J. Dionne is a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a political analyst for MSNBC, NPR, and ABC News. He is the author of seven books, including, most recently, One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate,…
From a veteran Marketplace correspondent comes a work that is as much a family history as it is a story of a superpower's globalization. Written in the engaging, self-effacing voice, A Village with My Name introduces readers to the regular people beyond the trophy skyscrapers and name-brand cities. It is…
Votes for Women! American Suffragists and the Battle for the Ballot
Votes for Women! American Suffragists and the Battle for the Ballot
An Interview with Richard L. Hasen
The death of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia two years ago brought forth an outpouring of tributes from legal and judicial conservatives. In his new book, The Justice of Contradictions: Antonin Scalia and the Politics of Disruption, law professor Richard L. Hasen declines to offer one. Hasen writes not to…
Richard III: England’s Most Controversial King
Richard III: England’s Most Controversial King
Our dear friend Betsy just texted a photo of her new tattoo. She’s a late-40s mother of three with a history of smaller, discreet tattoos. This was the most prominent yet, square on her bicep, the first initials of the names of the three children she’s given birth to and…
Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve
Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve
Travel through the universe of best-selling young adult LGBTQ+ fiction. New in 2018, this book club meets March through June on third Mondays at 7 pm. Free, no registration is required, and featured titles are discounted 20% at least four weeks prior to each discussion. At Curious Iguana, 12 N.…
Four Princes
The Wild Birds: A Novel
Join us from 6:30 to 7:30 for our April meeting! This month, we're reading and discussing The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo. At East City Bookshop, 645 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Washington, DC. Click here for info. Want your event spotlighted? Find details here!
The Book of Pearl
We recently started a new series over at the Thrill Begins called “Pay It Forward.” The regular columnists for the site are going to devote their weekly essays to writers who’ve had an impact on them, writers they think others should read. I love this idea and I’m happy we’re…
April 2018 Exemplars: Poetry Reviews by Grace Cavalieri
Wade in the Water by Tracy K. Smith. Graywolf Press. 88 pages. Another City by David Keplinger. Milkweed Editions. 112 pages. Onyx Moon by J.H. Beall; introduction by Richard Harteis. New Academia Publishing/SCARITH BOOKS. 84 pages. Eye Level by Jenny Xie. Graywolf Press. 80 pages. Wonderland by Matthew Dickman. W.W.…
Gods of Howl Mountain: A Novel
Gods of Howl Mountain: A Novel
The Washington Writers Conference Presents Kathy MacMillan
Kathy MacMillan is a writer, ASL interpreter, and librarian. Her debut YA novel, Sword and Verse, was a finalist for the 2017 Compton Crook Award. She is also author of the Little Hands Signing board-book series, as well as many resource books for parents and educators. Find out what resources…
An Interview with John R. Wennersten
Environmental historian John R. Wennersten has penned several books — including Maryland’s Eastern Shore: A Journey in Time and Place and Anacostia: The Death & Life of an American River — chronicling the natural beauty and ecological diversity of the Delmarva region. His latest work, Rising Tides: Climate Refugees in…
Noir: A Novel
Cynan Jones in Conversation with Nate Brown
Out at sea, in a sudden storm, a man is struck by lightning. When he wakes, injured and adrift on a kayak, his memory of who he is and how he came to be here is all but shattered. He will need to rely on his instincts, resilience, and imagination…
I have a confession: I’m not a very visual person. It’s an odd confession since I’ve been told on numerous occasions that I write scenes that my readers can fully visualize. But that’s easy. I just watch my story unfold in my head and then transfer it to paper. That…
Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz
Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz
Washington’s Farewell
Hallelujah Anyway
With a guest list that included 49 Nobel laureates along with many other distinguished scientists, artists, and writers, the dinner party held at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on April 29, 1962, was extraordinary even by White House standards. By today’s standards, it seems nearly unimaginable that people of distinct, and sometimes…
Circe: A Novel
Dinner in Camelot: The Night America’s Greatest Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Kennedy White House
Joan Silber Wins the 2018 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Joan Silber’s Improvement has been selected as the winner of the 2018 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. This year's judges considered nearly 450 novels and short-story collections by American authors published in the U.S. during 2017. As winner, Silber will receive a $15,000 prize. Each of the four finalists — Hernán…
5 Most Popular Posts: March 2018
The Washington Writers Conference. Folks are starting to realize that time’s running out to register for DC’s premier authorial event, which includes a keynote speech by Bob Schieffer, insightful panels, and three one-on-one pitch sessions with agents. (Better click here now!) An interview with Deborah Levy. The two-time Booker Prize…
Time again to test your reading skills with a pop quiz. Pair the first line of a novel with the last line in this multiple-choice quiz. 1. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert: We were at preparation, when the headmaster came in, followed by a new boy dressed in ‘civvies’ and…
(((Semitism))) Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump
(((Semitism))) Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump
The Washington Writers Conference Presents Delancey Stewart
Delancey Stewart is an award-winning author of contemporary romance, romantic comedy, and women's fiction. Like most romance authors, she books in specific series, including the Gotham Series, Kings Grove, and Love in the Vines. Learn what specific bookish advice she has for you at this year’s Washington Writers Conference on…
The Queen of Hearts: A Novel
Meet Bill Newman and John Wasowicz
Actor and Arlington icon Bill Newman appears at One More Page, fresh from his appearance as Oedipus in “The Gospel at Colonus,” to discuss his narration of the legal thriller Daingerfield Island with author John Wasowicz. About the book: ''Wasowicz's promising legal thriller series launch introduces savvy Washington, DC, defense…
An Interview with Sam J. Miller
In Sam J. Miller’s debut YA novel, The Art of Starving, teenage Matt lives in an impoverished Upstate New York town. He is deeply in the closet, and his older sister has recently run away from home under mysterious circumstances. This combination of stress activates a self-destructive tendency which takes…
Silver Girl: A Novel
Sending Books Over the (Prison) Fence
Nien Cheng was the wrong person at the wrong time. She was an educated woman and the wealthy widow of an oil executive during China’s Cultural Revolution, when Mao Zedong’s government worked to extirpate independent thought and political challenge. In August of 1966, when Cheng was 51, the government arrested…
Hinton was 29 when he was arrested on two counts of capital murder in Alabama in 1985. He was innocent, but he was also poor and black with an incompetent defense attorney. Hinton was convicted, sentenced to death by electrocution, and spent the first three years on death row in…
The Wild Inside: A Novel
Ward Just published his first novel in 1970 and has been churning out quietly cynical works every two or three years since then. The latest, which came out in 2016, is The Eastern Shore. Washington, DC, is one of the book’s settings, as it is in so many Just novels.…
Tinker to Evers to Chance: The Chicago Cubs and the Dawn of Modern America
Tinker to Evers to Chance: The Chicago Cubs and the Dawn of Modern America
Meet Frederick Pollack and James Han Mattson
The English department presents a Jenny 2 Reading Event, featuring two writers, Frederick Pollack and James Mattson. The event, on March 29th, begins at 5:00 pm in Bell Hall, Room 108. Frederick Pollack, an adjunct professor of creative writing here at GW, published in 2015, a collection of his poetry.…
Memento Mori: A Crime Novel of the Roman Empire
Memento Mori: A Crime Novel of the Roman Empire
The Washington Writers Conference Presents David Litt
David Litt, now a head writer for Funny or Die, used to pen speeches for our 44th president, a job he chronicled in 2017’s Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years. Find out directly from the source which gig had more laughs during this year’s Washington Writers Conference on…
Not much is said about the many women who worked silently on one of the most secret programs of World War II: the Manhattan Project. Author Janet Beard set out to correct that with her new novel, The Atomic City Girls. How was the writing process for The Atomic City…
Census: A Novel
“There ain’t no devil, it’s just God when he’s drunk…” – Tom Waits Oxford, Mississippi. The curator said that, to his knowledge, only one item had ever been poached here at Rowan Oak, William Faulkner’s home in the seat of Lafayette County. I wondered if he knew of the small…
A couple of years ago, I made a New Year’s Resolution to read Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I’d tried and failed to read the novel before, but suddenly realizing that it had exactly 365 chapters, I planned this time to read one chapter a day — pacing myself toward the…
The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote
The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote
Meet award-winning author Elaine Weiss, who will discuss her latest non-fiction book, The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote (Viking, 3/6/18). Event is free and open to the public; no reservations required. Q&A and book signing will follow presentation, and books will be available for purchase at…
South and West
Eveningland
Mary Alice Garber: On occasion, my living room resembles an auxiliary suite for the Children and Teens Department of Politics and Prose Bookstore. Towering stacks hold galleys of books to read for upcoming purchase from publishers and copies set aside for a closer, second read. I read all the time,…
Barbed Wire Heart: A Thriller
It’s funny to me how many authors bemoan the solitary nature of writing: how hard it is to forsake all society, to turn our backs on friends and family; how the isolation makes us a little ragged and churlish. For me, the isolation of writing is one of its great…
Tara Westover grew up in an isolated part of Idaho, as far off the grid as her Mormon parents could get. She had no birth certificate, wasn’t vaccinated, and never received medical or dental care. Her mother was an unlicensed midwife who practiced homeopathic medicine, her father a survivalist who…
Sadness Is a White Bird: A Novel
Sadness Is a White Bird: A Novel
An Interview with John Copenhaver
“Dodging” and “burning” refer to techniques a photographer can use to manipulate his subjects’ appearance. In his debut novel by that same name, John Copenhaver beautifully renders the lives of four young people — Bunny Prescott, Jay Greenwood, Robbie Bliss, and Robbie’s kid sister, Ceola — through alternating lenses of…
The Washington Writers Conference Presents Sherry Harris
Sherry Harris is author of the Agatha Award-nominated Sarah Winston Garage Sale series, vice president of Sisters in Crime (an organization that promotes the professional development of women crime writers), and a member of Mystery Writers of America. So it’s no mystery why we’re thrilled to have her at this…
Kings and Presidents: Saudi Arabia and the United States Since FDR
Kings and Presidents: Saudi Arabia and the United States Since FDR
Tangerine: A Novel
Wednesday Night Open-Mic Hosted by Jonathan B. Tucker
A Busboys and Poetry event! For two hours, audiences can expect a diverse chorus of voices and a vast array of professional spoken word performers, open-mic rookies, musicians, and a different host every week. At Busboys & Poets @ 5TH & K, 1025 5th Street, NW, Washington, DC. Click here…
Tomb Song: A Novel
American writer George Saunders got it right when he motioned to the wellspring of ambivalence in Anton Chekhov’s fiction. “That’s one of my favorite things about Chekhov,” writes Saunders. “His ability to embody what I call ‘on the other hand’ thinking. He’ll put something out with a great deal of…
The Ambulance Drivers
The Plague of War
Meet Luis Alberto Urrea - The House of Broken Angels
Miguel Angel De La Cruz, the aging patriarch in Urrea’s family epic, has invited his sprawling Mexican-American clan to San Diego to help him celebrate one final birthday. When his mother, nearly one hundred, dies the same weekend, her death only sparks more memories and makes the occasion all the…
The Stowaway: A Young Man’s Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica
The Stowaway: A Young Man’s Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica
In 1939, Lyubov Vasilievna Shaporina, founder of the St. Petersburg puppet theater and wife of a composer, traveled to a Russian village northeast of Moscow. Her young daughter had died seven years earlier, and the Soviet Union was at the time gripped by the government-sponsored purges. At home, gunshots would…
Like most novelists, I am bedeviled by that age-old literary divide between dialogue and description. At least I think it’s age-old, and my bedevilment might have been caused by some fried clam strips I ate last night. In any event, I do often reread my books and wonder if they…
Hotel Silence: A Novel
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
The Washington Writers Conference Presents John A. Farrell
Love Nixon? (Maybe “love” is too strong a word…) Then you must’ve enjoyed John A. Farrell’s biography of the disgraced president, Richard Nixon: The Life. But know what you’ll really enjoy? Hearing from Farrell on “Political Books in the Age of Trump” at this year’s Washington Writers Conference on May…
March 2018 Exemplars: Poetry Reviews by Grace Cavalieri
Fort Necessity by David Gewanter. University of Chicago Press. 80 pages. Darling Nova by Melissa Cundieff. Autumn House. 88 pages. Shadow-feast by Joan Houlihan. Four Way Books. 64 pages. The Getty Fiend by Ken White. Les Figues Press. 116 pages. Beauty Refracted by Carol Moldaw. Four Way Books. 80 pages.…
Join Master of Ceremonies Henry Crawford for a Splendid Wake 6, featuring Abdul Ali (remembering Dolores Kendrick); Kim Roberts (on DC Jazz Age writers, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and others); A.B. Spellman (on poetry and jazz in the work of performance poets during the Black Arts Movement); Truth…
An Interview with Brad Meltzer
Many of us stumble across a fun factoid or interesting personality that we end up sharing at a cocktail party or the office watercooler. Not Brad Meltzer. With the unerring ear of a good storyteller, Meltzer builds a book around those discoveries. The New York Times bestselling author of The…
Peculiar Ground: A Novel
A Conversation with Liza Mundy and Rebecca Boggs Roberts
Join us for a conversation between Liza Mundy and Rebecca Boggs Roberts on their respective books, Code Girls and Suffragists in Washington, D.C. In 1942, reeling from Japan's devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States military launched a secret program to recruit young female college graduates to serve…
I read Michel Foucault’s essay “Panopticism,” from Discipline and Punish, again the other day. I’ve been trying to find a way to break through to a student (a freshman) about what discipline is. I see many young people struggling against their education because they think their school oppresses them. I…
To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism
To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism
One Good Mama Bone
How the Hell Did This Happen?
Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Johnson’s White House
Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Johnson’s White House
Fans of romance already know this, but there really is something for everyone in the genre. From debut authors to legends in romance fiction, this month’s column includes a mix of contemporary and historical romance. Love is in the air, and I invite you to take a look at some…
Matthew Kroenig in Conversation with Francis J. Gavin
Conventional wisdom about nuclear weapons holds that the country needs to be able to absorb an enemy nuclear attack and still be able to respond with a devastating nuclear counterattack, with no additional weapons needed beyond those required for an effective second-strike. Kroenig, a Senior Fellow in the Brent Scowcroft…
Chicago
The idea for The Night of the Flood¸ the novel-in-stories I co-edited and contributed a story to (out now!), was birthed in 2016. The messy campaigns for president had left the country seething, and that anger — perhaps subconsciously, in some cases — informed our work. The 14 contributors took…
Visionary Women: How Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters Changed Our World
Visionary Women: How Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters Changed Our World
My Old Faithful: Stories
An Interview with Tayari Jones
An American Marriage, Tayari Jones’ new novel about a young, newlywed African-American couple torn apart when the husband is incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit, has quickly made it to the top of many must-read lists and was an Oprah’s Book Club pick. In the story, Roy and Celestial,…
I am a certified writing-resource junkie. I adore reading about writing: personal accounts, how-to books, research guides, self-help, and even grammar for writers. You name it, I’ll read it. Perusing the bookshelf that I dedicate to such writings, I began pulling off books that I thought others should know about.…
The Reel Story: Reporting in Washington
Reporting in Washington is so glamorous that Hollywood wants in. Good and bad journalism make great and awful movies. It's more than The Post and All The President's Men. There's Shock and Awe, Broadcast News, Shattered Glass, The Pelican Brief, The Insider, Wag The Dog and much more. Some Washington…
Avedon: Something Personal
The Aisles Have Eyes
Leo Durocher
Artemis: A Novel
5 Most Popular Posts: February 2018
Bob Duffy’s review of The Immortalists: A Novel by Chloe Benjamin. “In the siblings’ tales, author Benjamin shines a subtle light on the bonds of kinship and familial love, counter-balanced by the freedom, or willingness, to choose one’s own path. The Immortalists is a rich and rewarding novel, sure to…
Pietrzyk’s third novel is the haunting coming-of-age story of a woman who leaves her small, working-class Iowa town for the bright promise of a Chicago university. But rather than reveling in the academic and social opportunities, she grows reclusive. Fittingly unnamed, she possesses a capacity for empathy so strong that…
My writing life has been hectic lately (I’VE BEEN WRITING FOR 40 DAYS STRAIGHT!), and instead of following my regular routine of evening reading, I return to the computer after dinner to get a few more pages done. Frustrated at how few books I’ve read recently, I’m ignoring longer works…
The Rending and the Nest: A Novel
The Rending and the Nest: A Novel
Tears of Salt: A Doctor’s Story
Tears of Salt: A Doctor’s Story
An Interview with Victor LaValle
The Changeling by Victor LaValle is, on one level, a supernatural thriller in the vein of Stephen King. In it, tensions arise between rare-books dealer Apollo Kagwa and his wife, Emma, when they become new parents to a baby boy and Emma begins acting strange around it. At first, Apollo…
Explore literary fiction by international authors. This book club meets monthly on last Wednesdays at 7 pm. Free, no registration is required, and featured titles are discounted 20% at least four weeks prior to each discussion. Selection Day by Aravind Adiga – February 28 At Curious Iguana, 12 North Market…
The Field of Blood: The Battle for Aleppo and the Remaking of the Medieval Middle East
The Field of Blood: The Battle for Aleppo and the Remaking of the Medieval Middle East
Garrett M. Graff: I read for different purposes in different settings. Nearly all of my at-home pleasure reading is magazines and newspapers; as a magazine writer and former editor, I read print newspapers during the day and magazines in the evening. Despite working around and covering tech, I find there’s…
The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World
The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World
Black History Month Scavenger Hunt
Exclusively at Bellevue | William O. Lockridge Neighborhood Library, we will be hosting a Black History Month Scavenger Hunt. Rules: 1. Check out a book by an African-American author at the Bellevue Neighborhood Library location. 2. Take a selfie with the book on Instagram and tag @dcpubliclibrary and @90skidult. 3.…
Mr. Iyer Goes to War: a Novel
With the final installment coming out in her “Omega City” trilogy, Diana Peterfreund discusses her experience writing a Goonies-esque adventure series about a group of friends and their journey through conspiracies, cliffhangers, and outer space. At One More Page Books, 2200 N. Westmoreland St., Arlington, VA. Click here for info.…
The Button Thief of East 14th St.
The Button Thief of East 14th St.
Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories
Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories
Love, Hate & Other Filters
I was in a bookstore just before Christmas, a Barnes & Noble in Durham, North Carolina. I was doing that last-minute, trying-to-find-a-little-something-for-everyone shopping, even though, as always, we’d announced that we were only buying for the kids. (In our family, only two of the kids are under 18.) It’s that…
When I was growing up, Timbuktu was not a real place so much as a notion. “Going all the way to Timbuktu” was about the same as digging a hole to China. Timbuktu, in fact, is a real place, though it is indeed very far away and hard to get…
W.E.B. DuBois’ Birthday with Ibram Kendi and Dana Williams
To mark the 150th birthday of W.E.B. DuBois, join us for a conversation between National Book Award winner Ibram Kendi and Howard University English Department Chair Dana Williams. Dr. Kendi and Dr. Williams will be discussing Souls of Black Folk, DuBois’ seminal text and a beacon in the fight for…
A Wilder Time: Notes from a Geologist at the Edge of the Greenland Ice
A Wilder Time: Notes from a Geologist at the Edge of the Greenland Ice
The Washington Writers Conference Presents Caroline Kitchener
Caroline Kitchener is an associate editor at the Atlantic and author of Post Grad: Five Women and Their First Year Out of College. Her work has appeared in Vogue, the Wall Street Journal, Vox, the Daily Beast, and the Guardian. Find out what she can tell you about getting your…
An Interview with Daniel Ellsberg
Edward Snowden calls him the father of American whistleblowing. Henry Kissinger once labeled him the most dangerous man in America. Patriot or traitor? Depends on whom you ask, but there’s no denying the impact Daniel Ellsberg has had on American history. His leak of what became known as “the Pentagon…
Cut You Down: A Wakeland Novel
Cut You Down: A Wakeland Novel
With Valentine's Day just last week, I've been thinking about literary crushes — fictional characters that made you fall in love with them. I asked my husband who his crush was, and he told me Lady Brett Ashley from The Sun Also Rises. “It’s been a while since I’ve read…
Gunpowder Moon
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