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The Write Stuff
The art of storytelling, continued.
Latest Exclusives
E. Jean’s Hoop Dreams
Sex and love in the time of Magic.
Asparagus Tops
“There’s the public sexual confrontation of eating someone’s clothes. There’s the absurdity of it. And, of course, I always try to make the food taste good.”
The Art of Hanging Out
Miss Didion surely deserves a wide audience among those readers who may still be turned on by such qualities as grace, sophistication, nuance, irony and, as Miss Didion observed in another context, “what used to be called character.”
Monumental Trivialist
John O’Hara exaggerated the externals of American life because he personally was so smitten by them, and this is surely one reason why his reputation has shrunk to a husk of what it once was.
The Listeners
A chat with a shrink, a bartender, a hairdresser, a priest, and a switchboard operator to find out the things people tell them.
Franz
“You can help teach people how to draw,” Franz Kline said, “but you can’t teach them to be painters. All you can do is let them know they better love it or get the hell out.”
The Stacks Chat: Edward Sorel
“The big problem for comic art is you don’t want to overwork it. If a drawing is overworked it isn’t funny. It’s the spontaneity that keeps a work fresh and funny. It’s the Fred Astaire syndrome—make it look easy.”
The Untouchable
Rickey: An Appreciation
Sitting on the Rim With Earl Manigault
What becomes a legend most?
Summers of Love
From his Fenway Park debut, on April 17, 1964, until August 18, 1967, when he was beaned by the California Angels’ Jack Hamilton, Tony C was the perfect ballplayer, in the perfect place, at the perfect time.
The Stacks Chat: Ron Rosenbaum
“I believe that the best nonfiction is not ‘literary journalism,’ a misleading term, but rather journalism that asks the questions that serious literature asks.”
The Attentive Eye
Helen Dudar was one of the premier newspaper and magazine writers of the second half of the 20th Century—the only thing separating her from the more notorious journalists of the day was her want of any talent at or will for self-promotion.