For a taste of what it’s like to spend a semester studying writing with a renowned author, check out Alexander Chee’s essay in The Morning News, “Annie Dillard and the Writing Life.” Dillard’s remarkable description of...
Some countries have strict laws about naming babies. New Zealand authorities, for example, denied a request to name some twins Fish and Chips. • Halley’s Comet seen centuries before English astronomer Edmund Halley ever spotted it...
Stigler’s Law is states that no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. Halley’s Comet, Fibonacci numbers, the Pythagorean theorem, and the Bechdel test all bear the names of people who didn’t discover or...
A Huntsville, Alabama, listener says that when someone was being abrasive or mean or defiant, her mother would say she’s got her habits on. This phrase appears in the work of many blues singers, including Lucille Bogan and Bessie Smith, and...
Kurt Vonnegut on scathing book reviews: “Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.” This is part of a complete episode.
Martha’s enthusiastic about the book Poetry 180: A Turning Back To Poetry, edited by former Poet Laureate Billy Collins. One gem in there by Robley Wilson, called “I Wish in the City of Your Heart”, provides a lovely image of that...