VQR

Finding Balance in the Literary Blogosphere

Jacob Silverman, Should authors get down in the mud with their detractors?

A Pinch of Abatement

Matthew Shaer, The new grammar of Bond.

Irwin and Hockney’s Dispute Vessel

Waldo Jaquith, Lawrence Weschler on his role in the decades-old disagreement between two giants of art.

Alarcón Wins PEN Literary Award

Kevin Morrissey, It's for his novel "Lost City Radio," originally excerpted in VQR's pages.

Interview with Elliott Woods

Waldo Jaquith, WVTF talks to the author of "A Few Unforeseen Things."

Young Reviewers Contest Winner & Finalists Announced

Kevin Morrissey, VQR announces the winner of our Young Reviewers Contest.

A Few Unforeseen Things

Waldo Jaquith, Interviews with those left behind after the MOB Marez suicide bombing.

Congrats to Nicholas Schmidle! (And to all of VQR’s reporters)

Ted Genoways, Another VQR writer honored for his reporting.

Hayden Carruth, 1921-2008

Molly Minturn, Hayden Carruth, a frequent contributor to VQR, passed away at 87.

Sarah Palin Reads VQR!

Half the Sky: How China’s Gender Imbalance Threatens Its Future

Ted Genoways, Or so we must assume., , In China there are around 120 boys born for every 100 girls. That’s among the most lopsided ratios in the world, well above the United Nations recommended limit of 107, and it means that nearly 17 percent of new males don’t have a female counterpart. Even so, the figure doesn’t fully reflect the gravity of the situation. In Yichun, Jiangxi, there are 137 boys for every 100 girls under age four. In Fangchenggang, Guanxi, the number jumps to 153. And in Tianmen, Hubei: 176. China’s estimated 37 million additional males are concentrated in such towns in the interior. Demographers call them “surplus.” Overstock.

The Price of Aggression

Ted Genoways, We, as a nation, seem to believe that, win or lose, the war is nearly finished, done with, history. Unfortunately, for hundreds of thousands of American veterans and their families, the war is anything but over.

The Life and Lonely Death of Noah Pierce

Ashley Gilbertson, , At age 23, Noah Pierce took a handgun and shot himself in the head. It could have been the memory of the Iraqi child he crushed under his Bradley. It could have been the unarmed man he shot point-blank in the forehead, or the friend he tried madly to gather into a plastic bag after he had been blown to bits, or it could have been the doctor he killed.

A Poem for the Last American Soldier to Die in Iraq

Brian Turner, To be moved by the sheer accretion / of loss, that’s what this feels like, standing / in the scrub grass and the wind, gravestones / in their ranks and files before me. It’s as if / we must make a conscious effort / to recognize our failure to remember / just who these people were.

Ruin

Todd Boss, Ruin / was rumored / to be rooming / up the road / where / a neighbor’s barn’d / burned down. Subscription Required

Egrets

David Keeling, In the alluvium of / the hot afternoon, / where the day’s clarities / meet the muddy / salt currents of / evening, they resume / their pale protest / against the flocking night. Subscription Required

The Lions in His Menagerie

Albert Goldbarth, And for his human guests, imperial excess straining / all credulity: say a nightingale embalmed in honey / and stuffed in a swan that was stuffed in a tenderized hog / that was levered into a slow-roast ox. . .

Representing Doris

Peter Walpole, At some point in her late sixties, no one remembered exactly when, Doris Moat began to water her driveway. She would stand there for ten minutes, maybe fifteen, then carefully lay the hose down, walk over to the spigot by the stoop that led to her small side porch, and shut off the water.

The Iraq Show

Charles Antin, My main duties as the Production Assistant on The Iraq Show are to 1. translate the Daily Data into plain English and 2. get the coffee. I’ve only been on the job a few weeks so, for the most part, my job has been to 2. get the coffee. But today is different. Subscription Required

Tributes to writer and mentor George Garrett

Tributes to writer and mentor George Garrett, Read reminiscences by Richard Bausch, Robert Bausch, Carrie Brown, Kelly Cherry, Brendan Galvin, James W. Hall, Hilary Masters, Thomas McGonigle, Alan Wier, and many others.

A Few Unforeseen Things

A Few Unforeseen Things, Watch Elliott Woods’s video interviews with the friends and families of two men killed in a suicide bombing at the FOB Marez chow hall.

A conversation with poet Brian Turner

A conversation with poet Brian Turner, Read Patrick Hicks’s conversation with Brian Turner, Iraq War veteran and author of the acclaimed poetry collection Here, Bullet.

Notes from an Uncommon Reader

Sydney Blair, “Books about writing are especially useful to the beginning writer, dishing out advice and guidance before To write or not to write becomes not so much the noble question as a source of deep despair.” A review of James Wood’s “How Fiction Works.”

Dead-Eye Comic

Ross MacDonald, , Lawrence Weschler on David Hockney’s return to painting, J. Hoberman on “Lonesome Rhodes,” Blake Bailey on John Cheever’s childhood, and much, much more.