Last year I joined the board of Girls Write Now, a nonprofit organization that pairs at-risk teen girls with professional writers who support them. The pairs meet regularly, alone and in groups, and the girls who finish the program all go on to college. Amalie, for instance, broke down a little in her first reading (until the other mentees . . .
Some astronomers believe that Jesus was actually born around June 17, 2 B.C., when a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter would have made the planets appear as a single “beacon of light” — the star the Wise Men followed to the stable. Good will toward men, and biometric fingerprinting: Today’s border agencies would not have let the Magi in. (See . . .
Jeanette Winterson admires Joan Schenkar’s The Talented Miss Highsmith. “Obsession is focused but not linear,” she says, “and this biography is the same.”
“One of the funniest women on the Internet — actually, one of the funniest women alive — is D.E. Rasso, did you know?” Thanks to The Rumpus’ Elissa Bassist for helping to spread the word.
Granta editor John Freeman’s list of the best debut fiction of 2009 includes Paul Yoon’s Once the Shore and Paul Harding’s Tinkers.