Magnificent Octopus

When promotional material for Cult Writers: 50 Nonconformist Novelists You Need to Know fell into my inbox, I couldn't resist comparing...

Crazy. This summer is crazy. Crazy heat, crazy rain. Crazy schedule. Crazy mother-in-law, ensuring our well-laid plans turn to dust. One e...

"The vivid tulips eat my oxygen." Sylvia Plath reads "Tulips." Recorded in 1961. ( Text and background at Brain Pic...

For all of Sylvia Plath's poetry that I've been reading lately, most of it doesn't speak to me. Sure, I appreciate her nice turn...

With drawings! My edition doesn't have any drawings. (See " And Now a Word from Our Sponsors .")

It's been nigh on a month that I hosted a breakfast salon at the 15th Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival, in whic...

Life was not to be sitting in hot amorphic leisure in my backyard idly writing or not-writing, as the spirit moved me. It was, instead, runn...

Maybe a mouse gets to thinking pretty early on how the whole world is run by these enormous feet. Well, from where I sit, I figure the world...

The 15th Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival runs April 22–28. The full program is now available on the festival webs...

For reasons I won't get into just now, I'm doing some background reading on Sylvia Plath. Among other books, I ordered Johnny Pani...

I don't know how long I slept, because when I awoke in my solitary cell, of the many things I did not see, most conspicuously absent was...

I recently read The Bell Jar , by Sylvia Plath (originally published under a pseudonym), and I have to admit, I'm a bit mystified why so...