In December 1990, poet Cornelius Eady, now 71, was feeling dispirited by the literary world. He’d attended the Assn. of Writers & Writing Programs conference in Denver that year and felt like he was the only Black poet in attendance. “I wasn’t,” he assures me, all these decades later. “But it felt that way. I … Read more
Getty Images MARIO VARGAS LLOSA IN 1990 Mario Vargas Llosa, who has died at the age of 89 in his native Peru, was a towering figure in Latin American literature and culture who rarely shied away from controversy. With more than 50 works to his name, many of which have been widely translated, Vargas Llosa … Read more
Back in 2020, I faced the bane of every writer’s existence: a blank page, in an empty notebook. I was starting my first novel for adults in years, and I always struggle to find a way into the story. Except this time, I had a secret weapon in my back pocket: I’d written three young-adult … Read more
