Give and Take: March 2008 Archives
You love everything written by Elizabeth Bishop. You own all the Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux editions, the trusty coral-colored Poems, the sea-foam-green Prose, and the Bible-sized Letters. You've got the tizzy-causing uncollected, Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box. But you want some new books, too, and your bookshelf is stuffed. Enter Library of America, to the rescue! Their ELIZABETH BISHOP: Poems, Prose, and Letters was released on Valentine's Day, for you. This is the iPod of Bishop books, nearly a thousand pages, but only a quarter-inch thicker than the Complete Poems, thanks to LoA's ultra-lightweight paper and dense, yet easy-to-read page layout. It has only a selection of the letters, true, but it does have this unlikely one to T.C. Wilson from 1938:
"I like Key West more and more. In the 1st place we have been gambling at Sloppy Joe's and winning-- L., $35, me, $22. And then we have been invited to a real cocktail party-- all the water-colorists, ichthyologists, etc., etc., and a man who sold a story to Esquire a while ago, etc.
"I like Key West more and more. In the 1st place we have been gambling at Sloppy Joe's and winning-- L., $35, me, $22. And then we have been invited to a real cocktail party-- all the water-colorists, ichthyologists, etc., etc., and a man who sold a story to Esquire a while ago, etc.
Continue reading Elizabeth Bishop Has Slimmed Down.
Kristen-Paige Madonia, the winner of our inaugural Marianne Russo Scholarship, and a speaker during this year's New Voices Seminar, has been selected by The Studios of Key West as their very first visiting literary artist. She'll be staying in TSKW's "Mango Tree House" for one month beginning in October, just in time for Fantasy Fest and, if she's lucky, the tail end of the season for the mammoth mango trees on TSKW's compound. I had a chance to talk with Kristen-Paige about her plans yesterday:Arlo: What will you be working on during your residency at The Studios of Key West?
Kristen-Paige Madonia: I plan to work on my second novel. It's about a sixteen-year old embarking on a cross-country trip from West Virginia to San Francisco. This trip is prompted by the discovery that she is pregnant, and by her on-going ambition to locate her paternal father, whom she has never met. My intention with this project is to give voice to a character exploring the transition between childhood and adulthood.
A: Didn't you move from Virginia to the west coast? What role does your own life play in this novel?
KPM: Well, yes, I've made that cross-country trip too many times to count, but this novel isn't only about the physical trip from one side of the US to the other, it's also about the psychological journey of my character. It seems it is becoming more typical for people to move more frequently, whether it be an attempt at self-reinvention or a general anxiousness in society, so I'm trying to explore themes of rootlessness and restlessness in addition to the ever-changing definition of the "modern American family."
Continue reading Kristen-Paige Madonia named TSKW Artist in Residence.
Littoral is the year-round online voice of the Key West Literary Seminar. We write about literature, about Key West, and especially about the authors who have been or will be part of our annual Seminar. Throughout the year on Littoral, you'll find podcasts from our growing audio archives, interviews, book reviews, news about the Seminar, links, commentary, and arcana. To submit a post or idea, to ask a question, please email our editor, Arlo Haskell: arlohaskell at gmail dot com.
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