Hello, CausewayLit readers,My name is Kristen Dalli, and along with Victoria Buitron, I serve as one of Causeway’s Co-Editors-in-Chief. As readers, writers, and lovers of words, Victoria and I compiled a list of our most recent reads to share with all of you. While this hasn’t been an ideal time for many things, it has … Continue reading The CausewayLit Editors’ Two-Line Book Reviews on Their Pandemic Reads
Since we started dating four years ago, my boyfriend and I have wanted to take a trip to Baltimore. The National Aquarium for him, Edgar Allan Poe’s gravesite for me, and restaurants that serve good quality crab cakes for the both of us. With art museums and a massive Barnes and Noble bookstore to fill … Continue reading You’re Allowed to Feel: Guidance from Characters in YA Fiction
In Reading Like a Writer, Francine Prose says that by deliberate and slow “close reading” works in literature written by the masters, we become better writers. We also discover that there are no rules.We learn something new rereading a classic, and if we dissect a story to see how it’s constructed, a kind of osmosis … Continue reading “No Rules” in Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose
It is interesting how, as a student of poetry – and therefore operating with an acute awareness of one’s infantile blindness when the universe is flashing full of brilliant stars – one can develop, without even realizing it, an insensitivity to the discomfort of encountering the unknown. “Assault to Abjury” is a poem I have … Continue reading On “Assault to Abjury” by Raymond McDaniel
My name is Marina, and I’m addicted to books.They’re everywhere. I stack them anywhere there is an open space. My closet holds more books than clothes. Books serve as stands for mirrors, lamps, and jewelry stands. A bench I expected to refurbish years ago has become a makeshift bookcase, with books of all kinds stacked … Continue reading Surrounded: How Books Are Keeping Me Going in Quarantine
I work in a bookstore. Well, I should probably say: I worked in a bookstore until the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 which caused an indefinite furlough. I have since filed for unemployment alongside 6.6 million other Americans last week alone.But technically, yes, I work in a bookstore.We are all book people here. If you’re reading … Continue reading Are Books Essential? Working in a Bookstore Amidst a Pandemic
As a prose writer, I'm always looking for ways to gain valuable insight from other genres, and Mark Doty's The Art of Description offered helpful cross-training for creating more powerful, descriptive prose. The book is summed up thusly: “Description is an art to the degree that it gives us not just the world but the … Continue reading Poetic Prose: The Art and Craft of Description
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