Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 20
September 3, 2023
Writer’s Desk: Get into Character
When trying to get into the spirit of the characters from his new novel Crook Manifesto (incredible, by the way), recurring Writer’s Desk source Colson Whitehead decided he needed to learn as much as he could about the setting of Harlem in the early 1970s. Since his main character, Ray Carney (also the star of …
August 27, 2023
Writer’s Desk: Read and Learn
The novels of Sarah Waters (Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmith) have a typical milieu (Victorian, sensual, layered) that require a high degree of research. Her characters are always lively and well-drawn but the worlds they move through have to be very carefully constructed. But according to Waters, learning to write as she does is about more …
August 20, 2023
Writer’s Desk: Be a Collector
Writers like A.S. Byatt are not the kind who simply get an idea and start banging away at the keys. They study, accrue, and consider. In this interview, the elderly Byatt, still recovering from a recent hospitalization but full of ambition about new projects, talked about her process: You collect the things and then you …
August 13, 2023
Writer’s Desk: Be a Fool
The ever-punning fantasy author Piers Anthony has written, oh who knows how many books? A lot. So many that entire shelves at some used bookstores are given over to his well-read work. Not all of it is for the ages. But the man just loves to put words on paper. So who better to give …
August 6, 2023
Writer’s Desk: Prove Them All Wrong
Writers know that to get anywhere they generally require at least a few people to support what they are trying to do. Teachers, publishers, parents, spouses; everyone needs backup. Conversely, writers also know that to get anywhere, they also have to fight their way through the opposition. August Wilson, who was well into his thirties …
July 30, 2023
Writer’s Desk: You Are Talented
Onetime Greenwich Village bohemian and longtime Minnesotan Brenda Ueland published one of the great writing manuals in 1938. Unfortunately, very few people read If You Want to Write; after all, that was a time when the profession was seen as far harder to break into then it is today. The people of 1938 were missing …
July 23, 2023
Writer’s Desk: Do the Opposite
Director, playwright, and poet Jean Cocteau straddled worlds. His movies were like phantasmagorical dreams, his limpid writing flowed like filmstrips. For a few decades, his work defined much of what people meant when they talked about the avant-garde. In other words, Cocteau was not an artist like most others. Because of that, he had very …
July 20, 2023
Reader’s Corner: Of Anaïs Nin, He-Man, “The Talk,” and the Bomb
My latest graphic novel roundup was published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: If you think graphic novels tend to focus on people who get superpowers from spider bites or radioactive experiments gone wrong, think again. Four of this summer’s best graphic novels cover topics as wide-ranging as the sexual exploits of writer Anaïs Nin, “the talk” …
Continue reading Reader’s Corner: Of Anaïs Nin, He-Man, “The Talk,” and the Bomb
July 17, 2023
Screening Room: ‘After Hours’
I reviewed the new Criterion Collection release of Martin Scorsese’s low-budget 1985 nightmare comedy After Hours for PopMatters: Now available in an extras-packed Criterion edition, Martin Scorsese’s somewhat forgotten entry in the One Crazy Night genre, After Hours (1985), has most of its hallmarks but gives the loopiness a spin that’s both eerie and carnivalesque… Here’s the …
July 16, 2023
Writer’s Desk: Challenge Yourself
The highly prolific R. F. Kuang has in just a few short years published multiple knockout successes. From her bestselling fantasies Babel and The Poppy War series to the publishing social media satire Yellowface, she has delivered one success after another. At the same time, she is still pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages …
