Hello, I am currently under threat of hurricane, and electrical power/internet access could be cut at any moment, so I will be brief: I recently attempted to write a short story in the form of the narrating character’s first-person blog. It was difficult, to say the least, largely because the narrator was a low-key software engineer approaching 30 and living in Maryland with his wife and child. The main difficulty came from the fact that this character was in no way realistically allowed to be verbose. He could have some wisdom, and make insightful observations … Continue reading Why Is Every “I” Also a Genius?→
This year, Poetry Magazine has been celebrating its one-hundredth birthday. It’s not unheard of for a magazine to last a hundred years, even in this country where things get old fast, but it’s still unusual enough to note. And for another reason: not only has Poetry been celebrating its birthday all year long by publishing notable poets from its past alongside the contemporary – it also has published an anthology. I got notice of this in the mail last week and so I pass on the news to anyone who might want to know about it. One … Continue reading One Hundred Years of Poetry→
In August, Charlottesville author Jane Barnes published her third book, Falling in Love with Joseph Smith: My Search for the Real Prophet. She has written for films and publication and has two novels: I, Krupskaya, and Double Lives. Falling in Love with Joseph Smith is her first full length work of non-fiction. She describes the book as a spiritual memoir wrapped around a biography of Joseph Smith. Though the book has landed fortuitously in the middle of the “Mormon moment,” it has nothing to do with either Mitt Romney’s campaign or the Book of Mormon, the long-running Broadway musical. Her passions … Continue reading Channeling Jane Barnes→
Just about the worst thing a book jacket designer can do is, in my opinion, depict any of the characters on the cover. It seems almost a cruel thing to do, like he’s stealing imaginative power from the reader before the reader even gets to open the book. Story writing, by its nature, engages the imagination, but the imagination loves shortcuts, and any cover-art with a character in it is like a pizza delivery guy showing up when the author has spent hours cooking up a gourmet meal of prose. (Now, if you’ll please forgive that … Continue reading A Cover of Contempt→
[frame align=”right”] [/frame]The first American best seller was Susan Warner’s Wide Wide World, a saga of tears and redemption that appeared in 1850. It was eventually outsold by Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but only just. It’s not surprising that this best seller – and many a follower – was written by a woman. While women had no foothold in the professions – law, medicine, college teaching, scientific research, indeed, higher education itself, were virtually closed to all but that remarkable few who had supportive and indulgent parents (which is to say, fathers) or other male protectors. … Continue reading A Wider World→
Up until a few days ago, when it was returned in a glorious shower of shooting stars and singing angels, the internet connection at my house had been out for about a month. I suppose its absence could have been an opportunity for reflection, an exploration of what life is like without an electronic leash, without an instantaneous connection to the larger world, but mostly it was just annoying. I couldn’t check my email … so I just did it at work. I couldn’t download things … so I just did it at a coffee shop. … Continue reading The Internet: The Air Conditioning of the 21st Century→
[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→
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→
[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! 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!→
Streetlight Magazine is the non-profit home for unpublished fiction, poetry, essays, and art that inspires. Submit your work today!
