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A Canon For Kids: Russ Kick
“Comics can play all kinds of roles: education, art for art's sake, social commentary, pure entertainment, raunchy porn,” Russ Kick explains.
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A Literary Maiden Voyage: Herbie Hancock
During a career that spans seven astonishing decades, the Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based, Grammy- and Oscar-winning pianist and composer Herbie Hancock has gone where no jazz musician had gone before.
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First Fiction Fall 2014: Anticipated Debuts
Small, independent literary publishers are the champions of this fall’s crop of debut fiction writers.
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Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014: The “Wonderful but Strange” New World of Ann Leckie
In 2012, Ann Leckie, who had by that time published several short stories yet remained relatively unknown to many readers, was putting the finishing touches on her debut novel, "Ancillary Justice."
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First Fiction Fall 2014: Mette Ivie Harrison: Outlining Takes the Fun Out of Writing
Most murder mysteries are carefully plotted, but Mette Ivie Harrison didn’t know who the murderer was when she started writing her first adult novel.
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First Fiction Fall 2014: Scholastique Mukasonga: Falling in Love on The Way Home from Frankfurt
Jill Schoolman, the publisher of the 10-year-old, translation-focused small press Archipelago Books, is perhaps best known for introducing the American reading public to Karl Ove Knausgaard.
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First Fiction Fall 2014: Casey Walker: From 125,000 Words to 85,000, to 65,000
Casey Walker started "The Last Days in Shanghai" (Dec.) in 2007, after a trip to China.
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First Fiction Fall 2014: Nell Zink: Discovered by Franzen
Nell Zink describes herself as a secret writer, too shy to pen even a coherent query letter, and she says that after finishing "The Wallcreeper" (Oct.) in about a year, she “forgot all about it, because I was doing other stuff.”
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First Fiction Fall 2014: Alix Christie: Debut Novelist Tackles the Debut Of Printing
Alix Christie was 10 years old when she wrote her first novel. It was about horses.
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First Fiction Fall 2014: Eimear McBride: A True Original
Eimear McBride’s "A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing" (Sept.), written in a distinctive, fragmented prose style, has become a cult literary sensation.
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Where Stuart Stops, Stone Begins: Stuart Woods
Stuart Woods’s sitting room in his Park Avenue pied-à-terre is dark and book lined. He writes there, facing the computer in a corner.
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Atwood’s Tales: Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood meets me in a Toronto cafe to discuss "The Stone Mattress: Nine Tale," her latest book.
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Another Dublin Murder: Tana French
Tana French’s debut novel, "In the Woods," won the 2007 Edgar award for Best First Novel and made the Dublin Murder Squad and its detectives one of crime fiction’s most cherished investigative teams.
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A Book Could Be a Living Thing: Walter Isaacson
Walter Isaacson talks about innovation and 'The Innovators,' his National Book Award-nominated history of the digital age.
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Cooking with the Masters: Dana Cowin
Cowin is credited as the editor of several Food & Wine cookbooks, but her new project, she says, “feels like the first one.”
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Addicted to Afghanistan: Ted Rall
In 2010, Ted Rall and fellow cartoonists Matt Bors and Steven Cloud spent four nights at the Pamir, an unfinished four-story hotel—which, at the time, was occupied by members of the Taliban—in the Ghor province of Afghanistan.
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Fighting the Good Fight: Jane Haddam
A corrupt scheme involving private prisons. Mortgage fraud. These are the latest current public controversies to serve as significant plot elements for the twisty whodunit featuring Jane Haddam’s Armenian-American detective, Gregor Demarkian.
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Lessons from the King: Tavis Smiley
When Tavis Smiley established himself in the broadcast business in 2002, the legendary talk show host made a point of frequently featuring guests closely associated with Martin Luther King Jr.
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Ominous Miniatures: Matthea Harvey
The poet Matthea Harvey has a Frozen Charlotte doll—a china doll popular in the late 19th century—encased in ice in her freezer.
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Taking Back the Power: Katha Pollitt
Around the corner from her home on the Upper West Side, Katha Pollitt is ensconced in a booth at one of those no-frills diners that have mostly been squeezed out of Manhattan by fast food restaurants and upscale coffee dispensaries.