Sitemap - 2024 - Woman of Letters
In the same year my novel failed, this newsletter gained thousands of subscribers
Dharma isn't assigned by society
Many cultural institutions have forgotten their educational mission
"The function of the poet is, first and foremost…to be an early adopter of new media"
You can't write another Middlemarch
The reason editors don’t want reviews of classic novels
The dharma of writing high-brow fiction
It's impossible to write a good novel about climate change
How to write a book that 'transcends' commercial fiction
The Last Samurai is a book people will still be reading in 200 years
The most important news you'll hear about today
Why I am publishing a novella on Substack
Spanking your kids might be fine, or...it might be child abuse.
Christopher Lasch's books are great (if you enjoy feeling superior to other people)
Too many novels are lacking in moral vision
Start with 19th century literature
Hinduism did not precede Buddhism
Literacy is good or bad, perhaps
Sometimes the Great Books can be boring
Our literary landscape rewards demagoguery
Science fiction and psychological realism are uneasy partners
The Great Books are a source of power
Exceptional minds tend to lead exceptional lives
Garth Greenwell's book is unreadable
How to write a regular short story
The literary short story is an empty formal exercise
The gospel according to some guy's wife
The Mahabharata is a socio-historical process that's also an incredible text
The secular American university is worth keeping
The literati aren't reading new releases anymore
Literary journals shouldn't dismiss Christian fiction
The incoherence of the literary critics
"Western civilization" vs. "World literature"
Publishing short fiction on Substack is doable, but not easy
You can be a great writer without being an artist
Editors don't want male novelists
It's okay to take a book seriously
On going off my antidepressants
One simple method for reading more books
The North Korean Writing Workshop
Some badly-told stories get preserved forever
The only Great Book that is a must-read
Therapy isn't the (only) answer
Many popular things are not-so-great
Being a Great Books reader is always pathetic
THE DEFAULT WORLD is out today
Some topics aren't suitable for literature
Great Books tend to arise in the presence of great audiences.
I think I need to say that the Canterbury Tales is more worth your time than Gone Girl
Don't try to read Proust for the style
Good art ennobles; bad art doesn't
A lot of ancient philosophers weren't that keen on reading
The Great Books are the easiest route, for the lay intellectual, into the life of the mind
Perhaps the novel has lost its vital energies
There's a place for rote memorization
The world ain't ready for your long sentences, buckaroo
Being a mass murderer may not be a particularly great job
Even two centuries into the capitalist era, the literatures of East and West remain separate
When you're a published writer, reading becomes less rewarding
Shocking how little fun the masters of the universe seem to have
The union of the beautiful and the rigorous
The making of the global aspirational class
What Christians misunderstand about pagan religions
What autodidacts know about Plato that traditionally educated people don't
Maybe the purpose of life isn't to be happy
The Great Books obscure a powerful democratic tradition running through history
The professional-managerial class doesn't really exist in the way leftists want it to
How William Godwin dynamited his wife's reputation
How to create exciting book pitches