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About Donovan Webster
Donovan Webster is editor-at-large at VQR. He is the author of several books, including Aftermath: The Remnants of War and Meeting the Family: One Man’s Journey Through His Human Ancestry. A former senior editor for Outside, he now writes for National Geographic, Smithsonian, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times Magazine.
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Four Different Ways of Looking at How “Things Fall Apart”
Kevin Smokler
In honor of William Butler Yeats’s birthday (June 13, 1865, in Dublin), contributor Kevin Smokler looks at the historical echoes of one of the poet’s most immortal stanzas. “Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” [...]
The Group
Bethanne Patrick
I have a photo of myself on a bed with six other girls; we’re all lying on our sides, kicking our legs in the air like reclining Rockettes and laughing wildly. The photo was taken sometime during our senior year in college, after we’d spent many vacation and summer days together. I don’t display it, [...]
Join VQR for a Discussion on the Business of Literature: June 18 in NYC
Jane Friedman
As technologies and reading habits evolve, the business of literature is undergoing its own changes. Whether commercial or literary, the art, science, and business of publishing—as well as the art of storytelling itself—are being transformed. But where are these changes leading readers, literary culture, and the publishing industry? Please join the Virginia Quarterly Review on [...]
A Bookish Dissidence: A History of U.S. Alternative Media
Robert Birnbaum
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” —George Orwell “More newspapermen have been ruined by self-importance than by liquor.” —Walter Lippman In 1970, living on the north side of Chicago, having recently graduated from Roosevelt University, I overcame an ambition for graduate studies in philosophy and ended [...]
The Best Work in Literature
Manjula Martin
The following post by Manjula Martin (@manjulamartin) is part of our online companion to our Spring 2013 issue on The Business of Literature. Click here for an overview of the issue. —— i. In the basement I began as a “stock girl” at eleven years old. My job was to run up and down the stairs to [...]
Letter to a Future Great Gatsby Reader
Kevin Smokler
Dear Old Sport, I’m writing to you in late May of 2013, and the world again has its attention on The Great Gatsby. A new film version (the seventh) opened early this month and has already grossed $115 million. The acclaimed theatre group Elevator Repair Service piece Gatz—an eight-hour, thirteen-actor production where the novel is read word for [...]
The Choice and Challenge of Being a Writer-Parent
Becky Tuch
A recent issue of Poets & Writers features the married writing couple Victor LaValle and Emily Raboteau. “Books and Babies,” the magazine says on the cover. How do writers balance it all? The article focuses on six writers: Raboteau, LaValle, Christa Parravani, Anthony Swofford, Fiona Gardner, and Uche Nduka. While each of these writers offer [...]
Why Literary Criticism Still Matters
Bethanne Patrick
Which of the following constitute objective, literary criticism? Which constitute literary marketing? And which are neither of the above? • A bookseller writes a book review for a major national newspaper • A book reviewer accepts money from a publisher to promote a specific title after reviewing the book • A book blogger accepts a [...]
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