By The Firelight

You Can't Spell Literature Without T and A by Paul Constant Last Sunday, about 150 men and women (almost exactly even) gathered at Odd Fellows Hall to watch five naked women read selections from their favorite science-fiction novels and short-story collections. Wearing boots or high heels and nothing else (except for Jesse Belle-Jones, who wore a pair o […]

If You Hate Poetry, Read This Poet by Paul Constant If you've never enjoyed poetry once in your whole life—if even the word "poetry" makes you want to fall asleep, or die—you should read Karen Finneyfrock's new book of poetry, Ceremony for the Choking Ghost. Finneyfrock (a local slam poet, Hugo House writer in residence, and novelist) wri […]

this month’s episode features Susan Harris of Words Without Borders, who came on to talk about WWB’s educational programs and the Ecco Anthology of International Poetry that she edited along with Ilya Kaminsky. If you know Susan, than you know that this is a pretty funny and exciting conversation . . . and one that needed a bit of editing. Uh, yeah. via roch […]

Just when you thought there was nothing left to say about Lenin, along comes a fine book that represents him afresh by concentrating on his life before achieving power. Vladimir Ilyich and his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya spent seventeen years leading a parlous nomadic existence as underground agitators before their return to Russia in March 1917. Helen Rappaport […]

Back in the 1970s, I bought a paperback guide to “alternative Scotland”. The entire entry for Glenrothes read, “The alternative to Glenrothes is Edinburgh”. The counterculture of the 1960s and 70s was never a truly national phenomenon. It was mostly something that happened in London, though there were beleaguered outposts in Edinburgh, Oxford, Cheltenham, Br […]

During the final decade of the last century it was predicted that the small proportion of women wielding power would soon form a critical mass, with the result that equality would be swift and sure. All constraints on women would then be relegated, like the corset and bustle, to quaint museum exhibits. But while girls were marching to the public tune of prog […]

Every writer of reportage ought to learn from the Kapuscinski controversy. Creative non-fiction is a slippery slopeHad he lived a few years longer, Ryszard Kapuscinski might well have won the Nobel prize for literature. Although these things are shrouded in Vatican-like secrecy, I bet that he was on the Swedish Academy's rolling shortlist. Journalists i […]

As Disney rebrands Rapunzel as Tangled, we imagine what other children's stories and fairy tales could be made more appealing to boysDisney is taking no chances. Book publishers have long since realised that anything that sounds too obviously girly is a complete no-no for the unfairer sex – hence JK Rowling's books weren't published under the […]

Google and the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage have reached an agreement to digitise up to a million out-of-copyright works at the national libraries in Florence and Rome, including some by Galileo.And it's just two weeks after an Italian court gave three Google executives suspended prison sentences over a video of bullying on YouTube that had bee […]

Let's play. Let's play with words. Let's start with a man and a room and see where it takes us. But is that room a hotel room, a bedroom, an office ...And hello from my hotel room. I can't remember how many hotel rooms I have occupied since I last wrote to you, Best Beloveds, but they have been numerous and various and have served to conf […]

Below is a selection of items from the writer's archive, newly acquired by the Harry Ransom Centre, including his first ever poem, a first handwritten draft of Infinite Jest, a letter from the startled editor getting his head around the novel's vast scale, and one of his lists of 'VOCAB'David Foster Wallaceguardian.co.uk © Guardian News […]