Bronwyn Averett

  • Reading Notes: The Faraway Nearby

    Rebecca Solnit’s prolific and varied career as a woman of letters is remarkable in its scope. Though I believe she is most often thought of as an essayist, she is in fact many different people, depending on who you ask. To feminists and women in general she is the brilliant champion who introduced the concept of mansplaining Read more

  • Review : The Book of Speculation and The Mermaid Girl

    Erika Swyler’s first novel The Book of Speculation has a lot of things to recommend it: a reclusive archivist, mysterious tomes, a jolly antiquarian bookkeeper, mermaids, tarot cards, beach scenes, sibling rivalry, extramarital affairs, and the strange and delicious insanity that comes from loss of employment. There’s a bit of romance too. Also some love. Read more

  • Review: The Surrender

    It is nearly too perfect that the French word genre denotes both literary genre and gender. For if Scott Esposito’s quietly powerful essays found in The Surrender do not defy genre, they certainly do reveal the plasticity of memoir and then stretch the form to its limits. Somewhat the same could be said for the author’s own exploration of gender. In this book, the acclaimed critic Read more

  • Reading Notes: Rivka Galchen’s American Innovations

    Rivka Galchen: Canadian-born, Oklahoma-raised, New York City-dwelling author of a novel (Atmospheric Disturbances), a collection of stories (American Innovations) and the forthcoming Little Labors (New Directions, 17 May 2016). Her style is something of the whimsically eerie and she is one of those great writer’s writers who likes to be fairly clear (while also a Read more

  • The 18th Edition of Montreal’s Blue Metropolis Festival

    The sun is shining, the snow has melted, and Blue Metropolis just announced their 2016 program. Spring has come to Montreal! For those not familiar, Blue Met is the annual literary festival of the Blue Metropolis Foundation, which has been bringing people together in Montreal since 1997 to promote reading, writing, and education, focusing on Read more

  • Mad Men en français, or Why Sally Draper is Really Important

      A friend once described watching the AMC series Mad Men as an experience akin to reading well crafted postwar American short fiction. I thought that was a little excessive until I actually watched the show, which is exactly like well crafted postwar American short fiction. That’s not usually my jam. But the accessories are amazing and accessories Read more