March 23, 2023, 11:02am The shortlist for the £20,000 Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in the biz, was announced this morning and includes four debuts. The prize, named in honor of the iconic Welsh poet who died in 1953 at the age of 39, is unique in that it
Literature
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Australia may be a ‘young’ country in terms of its expansion and written culture, although of course, its Aboriginal culture is among the oldest and most august in the whole world. And choosing ten of the best Australian poems, written by some of the most illustrious names in Australian
March 23, 2023, 3:45pm When the waters rise above the doors of the Chicago Cli-Fi Library at the University of Chicago and books beg to be let in, a key question asked by the gatekeepers will be “what is climate fiction?” As extreme weather continues to ravage various places on the globe at once—20 feet
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Bigger Than the Whole Sky’ is one of Taylor Swift’s most talked-about recent songs. Released as a bonus track on her 2022 solo album Midnights, the song has attracted speculation concerning its ‘true’ meaning. Is it a song about losing a loved one? A relationship that broke down? A
TODAY: In 1916, J.R.R. Tolkien and Edith Bratt marry at St. Mary Immaculate Roman Catholic Church, Warwick, England. “I think we lose so much by only knowing one language.” Min Jin Lee talks to Julia Kovalenko about language, teaching, and her novel in progress. | Lit Hub What happens to your brain when you
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) There are lots of strange ideas surrounding the word ‘however’. Some teachers tell their students they shouldn’t begin a new sentence with the word ‘but’, and should substitute the word ‘however’ instead. However (as it were), this misses the fact that ‘but’ and ‘however’ are different classes of words,
March 22, 2023, 10:35am Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort. Especially if your home is the Austen family’s Steventon House in Hampshire, a 6,900 square foot Georgian beauty on 51 acres, beautifully updated and complete with walled garden, swimming pool, tennis court, and gardens galore. Oh, and it’s where Austen
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’ is one of the few short stories of the last half-century or so which can truly be called a modern myth. Indeed, Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018), the story’s author, called her 1973 tale a ‘psychomyth’, inspired by a passage she encountered
March 21, 2023, 11:28am The media got itself into a twist this week as (old) news that your favorite friend to pigs Sam Neill had dealt with a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma hit the airwaves. Neill, who is 8 months in remission for the condition, would rather everyone tone down the “CANCER! CANCER! CANCER!” talk,
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Arthur Miller (1915-2005) was one of the major American playwrights of the twentieth century. Along with Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill, he may be regarded as one of the most important and influential writers for the US stage during the 1940s and 1950s. Miller’s plays contain a strong social
March 21, 2023, 12:49pm Keeper of the lost words and defender of the trees Robert MacFarlane has released a poster of his poem “Heartwood” into the wild in the hopes that people will use it to support land preservation. In an Instagram post, he encourages its use by anyone who happens to be “defending trees,
‘Charles’ is a short story by the American writer Shirley Jackson (1916-65), first published in the women’s magazine Mademoiselle in 1948 and included in her 1949 collection, The Lottery and Other Stories. The story is about a young boy who, upon starting kindergarten, picks up bad habits which he attributes to the presence of Charles, a
March 20, 2023, 11:25am Today, The New Yorker published “Minority Report,” a new short story by Mary Gaitskill in which she “revisits” her classic short story “Secretary,” originally published in her 1988 collection Bad Behavior, and adapted (loosely) into a movie in 2002, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader. In “Secretary,” a seventeen-year-old girl named Debby
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Robert Frost (1874-1963) is one of the most important, and popular, American poets of the twentieth century. Over a long career, he wrote poems about everything from the natural world to the founding of America, from his own childhood and youth to the landscape of New England. Frost’s life
March 20, 2023, 11:30am There is a Banshees of Inisherin video game and it is a goddamn delight. Created by marketing concern Cogs & Marvel, the game—which has a classic late 80s 8-bit aesthetic—is a Pac-Manesque collect-and-escape adventure in which you play as Colm Doherty, Brendan Gleeson’s soulfully misanthropic character whose refusal to stay friends
‘Yet Do I Marvel’ is a poem by Countee Cullen (1903-46), an important poet in the literary and artistic movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. In the poem, Cullen considers the mysterious ways of God, which include God’s desire to create a Black poet whom he has instilled with the ability to ‘sing’. Before we
Veterinarians have an unusual relationship with our patients’ mortality, as along with working to help animals live, we sometimes help them die. Like our human physician counterparts, we spend a good part of our time trying to stave off death, through preventive care, vaccinations, and care of severely ill and hurt animals; we do all
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) A haiku is the most famous of all Japanese verse forms. In English versions, a haiku tends to consist of three unrhymed lines of (respectively) five, seven, and five syllables, adding up to a total of just seventeen syllables. However, you’ll notice that many of the best and most