All posts by Susan Shafarzek

The Sea, The Sea


 

[frame align=”right”][/frame]Dame Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) was a serious student of Platonic idealism, in addition to being a highly successful novelist. Her exploits as scholar and philosopher – she was fellow at St. Anne’s College, Oxford – add a resonance to her work that gives critics plenty to speculate about, but the most interesting thing for me, about Murdoch, is her cool-headed skill as a storyteller. Over the course of a long writing career, she produced more than twenty engrossing tales. Her novel, The Sea, The Sea is a prime example – and a good place … Continue reading The Sea, The Sea

Ode to the Long Form

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In contrast to my subject matter, I will try to be brief: I don’t have any long range studies to back this up, but I think communication is getting, in general, faster and briefer. I have anecdotal evidence galore; the text message has replaced email which replaced phone conversation which replaced the handwritten letter. Newspaper articles have been overtaken by blurbs on a blog (which may be soon sunsetted by tweets). I have a bit of empirical evidence too, like how in nightly news stories, sound bites from U.S. Presidential candidates have gone from an average of … Continue reading Ode to the Long Form

What You Don’t See


 

[frame align=”right”][/frame]In 2006, Farrar Straus and Giroux published Edgar Allan Poe and the Jukebox, a medley of previously uncollected work by Elizabeth Bishop (edited by Alice Quinn, poetry editor of The New Yorker and executive director of the Poetry Society of America). Running to over three hundred pages, it’s a bigger book than any book of poetry Bishop published in her lifetime and includes all sorts of things: juvenilia, scraps of unfinished poetry, and prose pieces of many kinds, in varying degrees of completion. “For those who love Elizabeth Bishop, “ said John Ashbery (perhaps … Continue reading What You Don’t See

Welcome to the new Streetlight Magazine!


 

Welcome to the new Streetlight Magazine! This issue marks the first online appearance of what has been a Charlottesville tradition – new and exciting work from writers and artists both in Charlottesville and the outlying parts of central Virginia. The print version of Streetlight made its first appearance on the Charlottesville scene as an outgrowth of the energy at Charlottesville Writing Center. Browning Porter was its innovative editor and Browning has been a friend of Streetlight ever since. It’s thanks in part to his efforts that the magazine still exists now as an independent entity, … Continue reading Welcome to the new Streetlight Magazine!