Whenever I see a historical novel that’s clearly a historical novel — the curlicue cover fonts, windswept beaches, hooped dresses, moody Renaissance hues, tall-masted schooners, maybe a helicopter to suggest Vietnam — I cringe. I feel bad for the writer. Because the idiot part of myself whispers that historical fiction was a terrible mistake. It’s one of those residual, myopic cultural .
Written in lucid and silken prose, Bermudian author Angela Barry’s The Drowned Forest is, in the words of Jacob Ross, the associate editor of fiction at Peepal Tree Press, a foundational text.
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In this special live episode of
Fiction/Non/Fiction, presented by Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis, acclaimed novelist and teacher Charles Baxter and his former student, short story writer Mike Alberti, join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss their new books. Upon the release of his seventeenth book, the much-anticipated
The Sun Collective, Baxter reflects on how time and place factor into his work and talks about writing about politics in his hometown. Then Alberti discusses his searing debut short story collection,
Some People Let You Down, and how he finds inspiration and hope in teaching incarcerated writers through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. The two also provide a rare window into their ongoing conversations about teaching and the craft of fiction, and answer questions from audience members and readers, including incarcerated writers.