June 29, 2020 The Art of Distance The Art of Distance No. 15 By The Paris Review In March, The Paris Review launched The Art of Distance, a newsletter highlighting unlocked archive pieces that resonate with the staff of the magazine, quarantine-appropriate writing on the Daily, resources from our peer organizations, and more. Read Emily Nemens’s introductory letter here, and find the latest unlocked archive pieces below. “As we move from spring to summer, as the days shift from getting longer to getting shorter, as some states push to reopen while others are placing new restrictions, I find myself split as well: wild to get outside, and desperate to crawl into a hole with a very big book. So I’m taking many walks outside with my family’s new puppy, Cashew (yep, we got a pandemic pup), and my current pandemic reading plan involves books in series—since reading all three volumes of Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, I’ve moved on to alternating between Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels and Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy (you’ll find these last two authors’ Art of Fiction interviews unlocked if you click their names). And so this installment of The Art of Distance, which offers another deep dive into the work of a single writer, features the poet Carl Phillips, whose work resonates for me in ways public and personal. I love the syntactical challenges his poems pose, of course, but his work in the TPR archive also forms a bit of a series—Phillips has conducted one Art of Poetry interview and been the subject of another; in the latter, he also talks a good deal about walking his dog, so we’ve got that in common. These connections may seem tenuous, but in these weird times, I’ll take what I can get. May you, too, find focus, clarity, and a sense of shared consciousness and conscience in Phillips’s work.” —Craig Morgan Teicher, Digital Director Carl Phillips. Photo: Reston Allen. Carl Phillips is one of America’s most beloved contemporary poets, known for his command of English syntax, his blending of classical mythology and contemporary concerns, and his deep explorations of eros and its implications. As judge of the Yale Younger Poets Prize, he has also been an advocate for new writers, launching the careers of Eduardo C. Corral, Airea D. Matthews, Yanyi, and others. Read More
June 22, 2020 The Art of Distance The Art of Distance No. 14 By The Paris Review In March, The Paris Review launched The Art of Distance, a newsletter highlighting unlocked archive pieces that resonate with the staff of the magazine, quarantine-appropriate writing on the Daily, resources from our peer organizations, and more. Read Emily Nemens’s introductory letter here, and find the latest unlocked archive pieces below. “This installment of The Art of Distance is inspired by the past week’s #BlackoutBestsellerList campaign, which encouraged book buyers to purchase two books by Black authors in order to fill best-seller lists with Black voices. Unlocked this week are seven pieces from recent issues of The Paris Review by Black writers who have also recently published books. If you enjoy this writing, we hope that you will consider buying these authors’ novels, story collections, and nonfiction works. We wish you a week of meaningful reading and hope you stay safe, sane, and engaged.” —Craig Morgan Teicher, Digital Director Read these stories, poems, and essays by TPR authors, and then check out their new, recent, and forthcoming works linked below. Venita Blackburn’s “Fam” (issue no. 226, Fall 2018) is a haunting glimpse into the social media life of a teen whose past is shadowed by family violence. Her debut story collection, Black Jesus and Other Superheroes, won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize for fiction, and Blackburn was a finalist for both the PEN/Bingham Prize for debut fiction and the Young Lions Award from the New York Public Library. Read More
June 15, 2020 The Art of Distance The Art of Distance No. 13 By The Paris Review In March, The Paris Review launched The Art of Distance, a newsletter highlighting unlocked archive pieces that resonate with the staff of the magazine, quarantine-appropriate writing on the Daily, resources from our peer organizations, and more. Read Emily Nemens’s introductory letter here, and find the latest unlocked archive pieces below. “In this thirteenth Art of Distance newsletter, we’re continuing to share the work of great Black writers from our archive. Unlocked this week is everything the Review has published by Hilton Als, who is a TPR advisory editor, a person of letters with a wildly capacious sensibility, and a wearer of many hats. Ostensibly, Als writes nonfiction, but that term is far too limiting to classify all that he does. He is a voracious consumer and assimilator of culture, churning the books, music, theater, and people he loves into visions and versions of his own unfolding story. His essays are like rigorous dreamscapes, vitally alive and wide open to everything the world has to share—Als turns nothing away. Als has not only contributed writing to the Review: he has also conducted several penetrating and joyful Writers at Work interviews, and has been featured across the past decade on the Daily. Enmeshed in his reevaluations of the culture of the past century is a stark look at the struggles that have brought us to this moment in Black, queer, and American history.” —Craig Morgan Teicher, Digital Director Hilton Als in a London photo booth, 2014. Courtesy of the writer. “I see fiction not as the construction of an alternate world but as what your imagination gives you from the real world,” Als tells Lisa Cohen in his Art of the Essay interview, which covers everything from mentors to trauma to queer life in New York to Thelonious Monk, Jane Fonda, and writing sentences that are “natural to who I am.” Read More
June 8, 2020 The Art of Distance The Art of Distance No. 12 By The Paris Review The Paris Review began sending out The Art of Distance twelve weeks ago, with the intention of offering hope, solidarity, and good company to readers facing a global pandemic. The pandemic continues, but the killing of George Floyd by police brought to the fore two other deep-rooted crises in our communities: police brutality and systemic racism in America. The Paris Review opposes racism and injustice. We are determined to work with contributors and readers and as an organization to make our industry a more equitable, dynamic, and creative place. This is a long process, but the Review believes it is vital and imperative work. This week, we’re sharing six more Writers at Work interviews with Black American writers and listing resources for those who wish to contribute to the movement. May these conversations and organizations offer a measure of inspiration and consolation, and may spending time with these texts remind us that this necessary work is ongoing. Stay safe, whether you are at home or in the streets. —The Paris Review This week, we’re highlighting more of the Black American voices in our archive by lifting the paywall on the following interviews (the interviews opened last week remain available as well): Maya Angelou, The Art of Fiction No. 119 “I thought early on if I could write a book for black girls it would be good because there were so few books for a black girl to read that said this is how it is to grow up. Then, I thought, I’d better, you know, enlarge that group, the market group that I’m trying to reach. I decided to write for black boys and then white girls and then white boys.” Read More
June 1, 2020 The Art of Distance The Art of Distance No. 11 By The Paris Review The Paris Review opposes racism and violence—both the recent, bold-faced demonstrations of police brutality, and the structural injustice that has been present in our nation since its founding. We are committed to being a part of the change: we will work with our writers, our readers, and our team to make publishing a more equitable, dynamic, and creative place. We believe language opens paths to truth and justice. This week we are sharing several Writers at Work interviews with Black authors who have provided us—and generations of readers—guidance and inspiration, and are distributing a list of resources for those affected by the crisis. —The Paris Review This week we are highlighting some of the Black American voices in our archive and have unlocked the following interviews: James Baldwin, the Art of Fiction No. 78 “I think that it is a spiritual disaster to pretend that one doesn’t love one’s country. You may disapprove of it, you may be forced to leave it, you may live your whole life as a battle, yet I don’t think you can escape it.” Read More
May 26, 2020 The Art of Distance The Art of Distance No. 10 By The Paris Review In March, The Paris Review launched The Art of Distance, a newsletter highlighting unlocked archive pieces that resonate with the staff of the magazine, quarantine-appropriate writing on the Daily, resources from our peer organizations, and more. Read Emily Nemens’s introductory letter here, and find the latest unlocked archive pieces below. “It’s getting warmer—for real this time—and since the world has sort of skipped spring, here at The Paris Review, we’re skipping ahead, too. The Summer 2020 issue, no. 233, will hit mailboxes shortly, and the season pretty much starts right after Memorial Day for publishing, so here we are. I know there’s a lot about this summer that will be far from ideal, and I hope some of the unlocked pieces below will help you grieve those things. But we will be able to get outside more and enjoy the weather (and find more excuses to unglue our eyes from screens). The days will be longer (a mixed blessing, I realize, for those with kids), and there will be more time to read, even if not on the beach—at least you won’t grease up your books with suntan lotion. So let us help you get a head start on summer. Meanwhile, please keep staying safe, and we wish you many stunning sunsets, from wherever you view the glorious summer sky.” —Craig Morgan Teicher, Digital Director Alan Fears, Every Man Is an Island, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 30″ x 30″. Image courtesy of Alan Fears. Elena Ferrante’s Art of Fiction interview might not be the most obvious choice when it comes to the idea of summer, but for me, her novels and the coming season are one and the same. Summer reading demands a really good plot, something that will stand up to the heat-induced torpor; one of my most vivid summer memories is first reading The Days of Abandonment one long July day six years ago. In her interview, Ferrante has the same idea: “In the case of The Days of Abandonment,” she says, “the writing freed the story in a short time, over one summer.” —Rhian Sasseen, Engagement Editor Read More