Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 9

Writer’s Desk: Bridge the Divide

A Rhodes Scholar who left Oxford to join the Marines in 1968, Karl Marlantes served one tour of duty in the Vietnam War before returning home and spending the next few decades trying to understand what happened over there and how to communicate it to anybody else. In “Why I Write,” Marlantes described being surrounded …

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Writer’s Corner: Learn and Share

The late Nikki Giovanni (1943-2024) was a poet who did a lot of things most people don’t expect poets to do. She started her own publishing company. She recorded an album with a gospel choir. She even interviewed James Baldwin on television. She also gave good advice to those willing to listen: I know some …

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Best Books of 2024

The year-end best books of 2024 feature just launched from PopMatters. I contributed the introduction and a few selections of my own: Industry consolidation or not, publishers of all sizes and tastes kept publishing more fascinating books than anybody could come close to reading in a year. However, the indomitable critics here at PopMatters did our level …

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Writer’s Desk: Start Cutting

Sometimes when stuck for inspiration, or just as a way of jump-starting things, William S. Burroughs liked to use something he and his friend, painter Brion Gysin, developed called the “cut-up method.” It’s not difficult, per Burroughs: Take any poet or writer you fancy. Heresay, or poems you have read over many times. The words …

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Screening Room: Best Movies of 2014 – ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’

James Gunn’s scruffy and un-spandex’d band of reluctant heroes mirrored the good-hearted rogues and raggedy charm of space westerns like 'Firefly.'

Reader’s Corner: PW’s 2024 Graphic Novel Critics Poll

Myself and a number of other (far more estimable) writers were asked to vote on the best graphic novels of the year for Publishers Weekly. The results are in! For the second year in a row, the top spot on PW’s annual graphic novel critics poll is shared by two titles. The debut graphic memoir Feeding Ghosts by …

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Screening Room: Best Movies of 2014 – ‘Boyhood’

Now that it’s been 10 years since the first Eyes Wide Open annual movie guide came out, it seemed a good time to look back on what were the most memorable movies of 2014. My article on Richard Linklater’s achingly poignant Boyhood was published at Eyes Wide Open: … wobbly at times but still magical …

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Writer’s Desk: Do Something, Then Write

In an interview with Guernica, Jamaica Kincaid dismissed the idea that writing is a real profession, no matter how much people try to make it into a career: The thing about writing in America—and I just recently understood this—is that writers in America have an arc. You enter writing as a career, you expect to …

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Shameless Self-Promotion: ‘A Minnesota Book(ish) Miscellany’

I worked with the good folks over at Rain Taxi Review of Books to celebrate the unique literary culture of Minnesota with a new chapbook. A Minnesota Book(ish) Miscellany is a collection of trivia, ephemera, and quotes about the state’s rich ecosystem of bookstores, booksellers, and generally passionate book people, such as: You can order …

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Writer’s Desk: Get Your Paradoxes Ready

In Angela Carter’s introduction to the writing guide Death is No Obstacle, she mock-accuses genre-spanning fantasist Michael Moorcock of “giving everything away.” This may be taking it too far, because it’s hard to see how many writers even if they follow his advice to a tee could churn out novels in under a week as …

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