Search results for ""Author Joyce Carol Oates""

Teena Maguire should not have tried to shortcut her way home that Fourth of July. Not after midnight, not through Rocky Point Park. Not the way she was dressed in a tank top, denim cutoffs, and high-heeled sandals. Not with her twelve-year-old daughter Bethie. Not with packs of local guys running loose on hormones, rage and alcohol. A victim of gang rape, left for dead in the park boathouse, the once vivacious Teena can now only regret that she has survived. At a relentlessly compelling pace punctuated by lonely cries in the night and the whisper of terror in the afternoon, Joyce Carol Oates unfolds the story of Teena and Bethie, their assailants, and their unexpected, silent champion, a man who knows the meaning of justice. And love.

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From Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of Blonde, now a major motion picture, an eerie, psychologically complex thriller about a woman haunted by her traumatic past. As a child, Abby had the same nightmare night after night, in which she wandered through a field ridden with human bones. Now an adult, Abby thinks she's outgrown her demons, until, the evening before her wedding, the terrible dream returns and forces her to confront the dark secrets she is keeping from her new husband, Willem. The following day, less than 24 hours after exchanging vows, Abby steps out into traffic. As his wife lies in her hospital bed, Willem tries to determine whether this was an absentminded accident or a premeditated plunge. Slowly, Abby begins to open up to her husband, revealing to him what she has never shared with anyone before: the story of a terrified mother; a jealous, drug addled father; and a daughter's terrifying captivity. With a suspenseful, alternating narrative that travels between the present and Abby's tortured childhood, Pursuit is a meticulously crafted, deeply disquieting tale that showcases Oates's masterful storytelling. Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times 'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist

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From literary icon Joyce Carol Oates, author of Blonde, now a major motion picture, comes a brand new collection of haunting and, at times, darkly humorous mystery and suspense stories. These are tales of psyches pushed to their limits by the expectations of everyday life – from a woman who gets lost on her drive back to her plush suburban home and ends up breaking into a stranger's house, to a first-person account of a cloned 1940s magazine pinup girl being sold at auction and embodying America's ideals of beauty and womanhood. Taken as a whole, the collection forms a poignant tapestry of regular people searching for their place in a social hierarchy, often with devastating and disastrous results. Rendered with stylish, fresh writing from an author who continues to push the envelope, the stories deftly weave in and out of a stream-of-consciousness to reflect the ways we process traumatic experiences and impart that uncertainty and uneasiness to the reader. The stories comprising Night, Neon showcase Oates' mastery of the suspense story and her relentless use of the form to conduct unapologetically honest explorations of American identity. 'Embracing the twists and turns of everyday American life, the author's latest short story collection is playful, gripping and disturbing.' Guardian Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times 'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist

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Oates's imagination is as unique, dystopian and vivid as Lewis Carroll's' ROSE TREMAIN''A master storyteller'' THE TIMES''Electric'' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWZero-sum games are played for lethal stakes in these arresting stories by one of America's most acclaimed writers.A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered; diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community; a woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover; a young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as mother. In the collection's longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with drafts of his own suicide.In these powerfully wrought stories that hold a mirror up to our time, Joyce Carol Oates has created a world of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism, and ever-shifting identities. Provocative and stunning, Zero-Sum rein

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‘The story of Trump’s America’ Daily Mail Two families. Two faces of America. One violent crime that will bitterly divide them – and yet bind them together forever. ‘A magnificent story of two broken families’ Independent ‘Page-turning, gripping, full of unexpected twists’ Observer ‘From its dramatic opening, with the killing of an abortionist, the book rockets forwards … Ingenious, agile, dazzling’ Literary Review ‘Morally meaty and always readable’ Sunday Times ‘A masterpiece’ Washington Post

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A tale of murder, loss and romance in the mist of Niagara Falls: it is the crowning achievement of Joyce Carol Oates’s career to date. A man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls. He's a newly-wed, and his bride has been left behind in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. For two weeks, Ariah, the deserted bride, waits by the side of the roaring waterfall for news of her husband's recovered body. During her vigil, an unlikely new love story begins to unfold when she meets a wealthy lawyer who is transfixed by her strange, otherworldly gaze. So it all begins, in the 1950s, with the dark foreboding of the Falls as the sinister background to the tragedy. From this cataclysmic event unfurls a drama of parents and their children; of secrets and sins; of lawsuits, murder and, eventually redemption. As Ariah’s children learn that their past is enmeshed with a hushed-up scandal involving radioactive waste materials, they must confront not only their personal history but America’s murky past: the despoiling of the American landscape and the corruption and greed of the massive industrial expansion of the 1950s and 1960s. This novel of tremendous sweep and pace is about the American family in crisis – but also about America itself in the mid-20th century. This book alone places Joyce Carol Oates definitively in the company of the Great American Novelists.

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An eerie, psychological thriller about a newlywed wife haunted by her secret, traumatic past.

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Simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer going' GILLIAN FLYNN''Delightfully disturbing'' iNEWS''A blood-soaked, gothic nightmare'' FINANCIAL TIMESFrom one of our most accomplished storytellers, an extraordinary and arresting novel about a women's asylum in the nineteenth century, and a terrifying doctor who wants to change the world.In this harrowing story based on authentic historical documents, we follow the career of Dr. Silas Weir, Father of Gyno-Psychiatry, as he ascends from professional anonymity to national renown. Humiliated by a procedure gone terribly wrong, Weir is forced to take a position at the New Jersey Asylum for Female Lunatics, where he reigns. There, he is allowed to continue his practice, unchecked for decades, making a name for himself by focusing on women who have been neglected by the statewomen he subjects to the most grotesque modes of experimentation. As he begins to establish himself as a pioneer of nineteenth-century s

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An ingenious dystopian novel of one young woman’s resistance against the constraints of an oppressive society When a recklessly idealistic girl in a dystopian future society dares to test the perimeters of her tightly controlled world, she is punished by being sent back in time to a region of North America – ‘Wainscotia, Wisconsin’ – that existed eighty years before. Cast adrift in time in this idyllic Midwestern town, she is set upon a course of ‘rehabilitation’ – but she falls in love with a fellow exile and starts to question the constraints of her new existence, with results that are both devastating and liberating. Arresting and visionary, Hazards of Time Travel is an exquisitely wrought love story, a novel of harrowing discovery – and an oblique but powerful response to our current political climate.

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Fifteen-year-old Katya Spivak is out for a walk on the streets of Bayhead Harbor, New Jersey, when she is approached by silver-haired, elegant Marcus Kidder. At first his interest in her seems harmless. The world he inhabits acts as a tonic to her drab existence. And as a children's book writer, he seems to be a man she can trust. His home is beautiful and he lavishes gifts on her. Everything about him is enticing - perhaps too enticing? Like a moth to the light Katya agrees to pose for a painting. But by degrees something changes. Being Mr Kidder's muse is not the easy endeavour it once was. What does he really want from her? And how far will he go to get it? This spare, chilling novel shows Joyce Carol Oates at the height of her powers as a literary storyteller.

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When a woman mysteriously vanishes from her small town home, her sister must tally up the clues to uncover the truth behind the mystery.Beautiful sculptor Marguerite has disappeared from her small town in upstate New York. But was foul play involved? Did she merely get away for some fun? Or did she finally make the decision to leave behind her claustrophobic life of limited opportunities?Younger sister Gigi wonders if the flimsy silk Dior dress, so casually abandoned on the floor, is a clue to Marguerite''s vanishing. The police puzzle over the footprints made by her Ferragamo boots, which end abruptly close to her home.Bit by bit, revelations about both women are uncovered, as Gigi, not so pretty as her sister, reveals her true feelings about the perfect, much-loved Marguerite. The fate of the missing beauty slowly and subtly comes to light In this suspenseful story about the complex relationship between two sisters.48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister is an

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From Joyce Carol Oates, one of America''s most feted and critically acclaimed authors, a collection of mysterious, suspenseful and macabre tales.In her inimitable style, Oates takes the reader on unsettling journeys through the modern American psyche. Here you will find tales of loss and grief, confusion and darkness; of violent ends and the cruel march of time; of failed relationships, family deceit, and professional jealousy; of deceitful lovers, distant spouses, and those with murder in mind. Dark secrets or their own consciences impact Oates'' characters as she moves between small American towns and anonymous urban sprawls, between the courtroom, the hospital, the world of academia, and the wilderness of upstate New York with deft skill in this tantalising collection of the macabre and mysterious, the suspenseful and the sublime.''[A] literary goddess.'' Daily Mail

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NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX FILM, STARRING ANA DE ARMAS, ADRIEN BRODY, BOBBY CANNAVALE AND JULIANNE NICHOLSON, DIRECTED BY ANDREW DOMINIK ‘A torrentially imaginative, compulsively readable tour de force’ Sunday Telegraph ‘A fabulous reinvention of the life of a fabulous reinvention, and a cracking page-turner to boot’ Evening Standard Blonde is a mesmerising novel about the most enduring and evocative cultural icon of the 20th century: the woman who became Marilyn Monroe. A fragile and gifted young woman, Norma Jeane Baker makes and remakes her identity: she is the orphan whose mother is declared mad; the woman who changes her name to be an actress; the fated celebrity, lover and muse. Told in her voice, Blonde shows a culture hypnotised by its own myths, and the devastating effects it had on Hollywood’s greatest star. ‘This masterpiece about Marilyn Monroe’s life is audacious, gripping and clever’ Rose Tremain ‘If you haven’t read Joyce Carol Oates before, start here, and now’ Independent

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From Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE, now a major motion picture, a collection of four dark and compelling novellas about love gone wrong. The young fourth wife of a prominent intellectual thinks herself happy until the first wife comes to stay. A shy teenager meets a dazzling kindred spirit. But the first sparks of young love soon take on a darker shade... A spoiled frat boy decides to murder his parents, only to be floored by the power of his mother's love; and a fragile woman reveals deeply buried secrets to her curious lover with devastating consequences... All of these stories are about love, just not as we like to think of it. Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times 'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist

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The Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel from the author of the New York Times bestselling novel We Were the Mulvaneys“Its power of evocation is remarkable.” —The New Yorker In the midst of a long summer on Grayling Island, Maine, twenty-six-year-old Kelly Kelleher longs for something interesting to happen to her—something that will make her finally feel some of what she imagines other people must feel when they watch the fireworks explode off the beach. So when Kelly meets The Senator at an exclusive party and he asks her to go back to a hotel room on the main island with him, she says yes. Even though the senator is old enough to be her father, even though he has perhaps been drinking too heavily to get behind the wheel, the danger of saying yes is an inevitable and even exciting part of the adventure Kelly is finally going to have. However, as The Senator’s car whips around the island’s roads and eventually crashes through a guardrail, it becomes clear to Kelly and the reader that this man embodies a wholly different and more sinister type of danger, one much larger and harder to contain than the horrible events that unfold as Kelly is left in the sinking car. Black Water is a chilling meditation on power, trust, and violation and a timeless classic from one of America’s foremost storytellers.

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The bonds of family are tested in the wake of a profound tragedy, providing a look at the darker side of our society Night Sleep Death The Stars is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: when a powerful parent dies, each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways, and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all. Stark and penetrating, Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel is a vivid exploration of race, psychological trauma, class warfare, grief, and eventual healing, as well as an intimate family novel in the tradition of the author’s bestselling We Were the Mulvaneys.

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Hard-hitting, page-turning and celebratory of friendship in unlikely circumstances, Joyce Carol Oates' sure touch with small town life hits home in her first young adult novel. Matt Donaghy is the class joker, and Ursula Riggs is the misfit loner. Neither knows the other. But when Matt is suddenly arrested on a charge of threatening to blow up the school and massacre the students, Ursula is the only one who sees through the hysteria and hypocrisy, and corroborates Matt's story. The case is dropped, but Matt's old friends avoid him, and his teachers treat him with kid gloves. Even Ursula, apparently his only friend during the crisis, can't meet his eye. But Ursula can't remain aloof when she catches Matt contemplating suicide – and a strange friendship is born.

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A dark collection from one of America's literary giants.A young wife is home alone when the phone rings in 'So Help Me God.' Is the strange voice flirting with her from the other end of the line her jealous husband laying a trap, or a stranger who knows entirely too much about her? In 'Madison at Guignol' an unhappy fashionista discovers a secret door inside her favourite clothing store and insists the staff let her enter. But even her fevered imagination cannot anticipate the horror they have been hiding from her. In these and other gripping and disturbing tales, women are confronted by the evil around them and surprised by the evil they find within themselves. With wicked insight, Joyce Carol Oates demonstrates why the females of the species - be they six-year-old girls, seemingly devoted wives, or aging mothers - are by nature more deadly than the males.

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When a beautiful woman mysteriously vanishes from her small town home, her sister must uncover the truth behind the mystery. Sculptor Marguerite has disappeared from her small town in upstate New York. But was foul play involved? Did she merely get away for some fun? Or did she finally decide to leave behind her claustrophobic life of limited opportunities? Younger sister Gigi wonders if the clues left in Marguerite's wake – the flimsy silk Dior dress, so casually abandoned, the footprints made by her Ferragamo boots, which end abruptly close to home – are really clues at all. Bit by bit, revelations about both women are uncovered, together with Gigi's true feelings about the much-loved Marguerite. The fate of the missing beauty slowly and subtly comes to light In this suspenseful story about the complex relationship between two sisters. 48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister is an exquisitely suspenseful tale from Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of Blonde and We Were the Mulvaneys. 'This elegant, captivating tale is un-put-downable.' Publishers Weekly 'Perfect for all the Daisy Jones & the Six fans out there.' Katie Couric Media 'Another masterpiece of storytelling.' Booklist 'Not just a ripping good mystery, but a meticulous character study.' Los Angeles Magazine

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A brilliant and thought-provoking novel about family, loyalty and betrayal Once I’d been Daddy’s favourite. Before something terrible happened. Violet Rue is the baby of the seven Kerrigan children and adores her big brothers. What’s more, she knows that a family protects its own. To go outside the family – to betray the family – is unforgiveable. So when she overhears a conversation not meant for her ears and discovers that her brothers have committed a heinous crime, she is torn between her loyalty to her family and her sense of justice. The decision she takes will change her life for ever. Exploring racism, misogyny, community, family, loyalty, sexuality and identity, this is a dark story with a tense and propulsive atmosphere – Joyce Carol Oates at her very best.

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Presents a collection of short stories focusing on the relationship between and mother and daughter from such authors as Margaret Atwood, Gloria Naylor, and Alice Walker.

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A masterly work from a writer with “the uncanny ability to give us a cinemascopic vision of her America” (National Review), A Garden of Earthly Delights is the opening stanza in what would become one of the most powerful and engrossing story arcs in literature.Joyce Carol Oates’s Wonderland Quartet comprises four remarkable novels that explore social class in America and the inner lives of young Americans. In A Garden of Earthly Delights, Oates presents one of her most memorable heroines, Clara Walpole, the beautiful daughter of Kentucky-born migrant farmworkers. Desperate to rise above her haphazard existence of violence and poverty, determined not to repeat her mother’s life, Clara struggles for independence by way of her relationships with four very different men: her father, a family man turned itinerant laborer, smoldering with resentment; the mysterious Lowry, who rescues Clara as a teenager and offers h

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The Stoker Award-winning chilling anthology of 18 short stories in tribute to the genius of Shirley Jackson, collecting today’s best horror writers. Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Paul Tremblay, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand and more. A collection of new and exclusive short stories inspired by, and in tribute to, Shirley Jackson. Shirley Jackson is a seminal writer of horror and mystery fiction, whose legacy resonates globally today. Chilling, human, poignant and strange, her stories have inspired a generation of writers and readers. This anthology, edited by legendary horror editor Ellen Datlow, will bring together today’s leading horror writers to offer their own personal tribute to the work of Shirley Jackson. Featuring: Joyce Carol Oates Josh Malerman Carmen Maria Machado Paul Tremblay Richard Kadrey Stephen Graham Jones Elizabeth Hand Kelly Link Cassandra Khaw Karen Heuler Benjamin Percy John Langan Laird Barron Jeffrey Ford M. Rickert Seanan McGuire Gemma Files Genevieve Valentine.

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The Stoker Award-winning chilling anthology of 18 short stories in tribute to the genius of Shirley Jackson, collecting today’s best horror writers. Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Paul Tremblay, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand and more. A collection of new and exclusive short stories inspired by, and in tribute to, Shirley Jackson. Shirley Jackson is a seminal writer of horror and mystery fiction, whose legacy resonates globally today. Chilling, human, poignant and strange, her stories have inspired a generation of writers and readers. This anthology, edited by legendary horror editor Ellen Datlow, will bring together today’s leading horror writers to offer their own personal tribute to the work of Shirley Jackson. Featuring: Joyce Carol Oates Josh Malerman Carmen Maria Machado Paul Tremblay Richard Kadrey Stephen Graham Jones Elizabeth Hand Kelly Link Cassandra Khaw Karen Heuler Benjamin Percy John Langan Laird Barron Jeffrey Ford M. Rickert Seanan McGuire Gemma Files Genevieve Valentine.

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A provocative, unprecedented anthology featuring original short stories on what it means to be an American from thirty bestselling and award-winning authors with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen: “This chorus of brilliant voices articulating the shape and texture of contemporary America makes for necessary reading” (Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies). When Donald Trump claimed victory in the November 2016 election, the US literary and art world erupted in indignation. Many of America’s preeminent writers and artists are stridently opposed to the administration’s agenda and executive orders—and they’re not about to go gentle into that good night. In this “masterful literary achievement” (Kurt Eichenwald, author of Conspiracy of Fools), more than thirty of the most acclaimed writers at work today consider the fundamental ideals of a free, just, and compassionate democracy through fiction in an anthology that “promises to be both a powerful tool in the fight to uphold our values and a tribute to the remarkable voices behind it” (Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU). With an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and edited by bestselling author Jonathan Santlofer, this powerful anthology includes original, striking art from fourteen of the country’s most celebrated artists, cartoonists, and graphic novelists, including Art Spiegelman, Roz Chast, Marilyn Minter, and Eric Fischl. Transcendent, urgent, and ultimately hopeful, It Occurs to Me That I Am America takes back the narrative of what it means to be an American in the 21st century.

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Alone Street brings together two major bodies of work by Gregory Crewdson, Cathedral of the Pines (Aperture, 2016) and An Eclipse of Moths (Aperture, 2020), in a single, elegant, and affordable monograph. Both series expand on the artist’s obsessive exploration of the psychogeography of small-town, post-industrial New England and underscore the precision and depth of Crewdson’s unique mode of photographic storytelling. In each image, light, color, and carefully crafted scenography evoke the feeling that, as art historian Alexander Nemerov has astutely described, “all that ever happened in these places seems crystallized in his tableaux, as if the quiet melancholy of Crewdson’s scenes gathered the unruly sorrows and other little-guessed feelings of people long-gone who once stood on those spots.” In addition to the full set of images from each series, Alone Street, presents a selection of behind-the-scenes images and storyboards, revealing the extensive preparation and planning that went into the making of each work.

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Simpsonistas: Tales from the Simpson Family Literary Project, Vol. 1 highlights brilliant work by associates of the Simpson Project: Joyce Carol Oates, Anthony Marra, T. Geronimo Johnson, Samantha Hunt, Lori Ostlund, Martin Pousson, Ben Fountain, and many others, including Simpson Fellows as well as young writers appearing for the first time in print. Johnson and Marra were Simpson Prize Winners; Fountain, Hunt, Ostlund, and Pousson were Prize Finalists.Simpsonistas is the anthology of the New Literary Project, which is committed to the proposition that storytelling is the foundation of a literate society: newliteraryproject.org.The New Literary Project promotes storytellers and storytelling across the generations, and across a tremendous spectrum: from incarcerated young men and women to high school-age students to creative writers teaching high school to distinguished mid-career authors. Simpson Fellows from UC Berkeley lead workshops for fledgling writers, Jack Hazard Fellows receive $5,000 in support of an ongoing writing project, and the annual Joyce Carol Oates Prize Recipient receives an award of $50,000 in support of a burgeoning career.

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Simpsonistas: Vol. 4 begins at the onset of creation. Conversations and references dot the pages of authors acclaimed and emerging—with many of the stories weaving together sensation and interpretation. We are told that “There is creative power in a pause,” and following the “plague year” of Simpsonistas Vol. 3, Vol. 4 is a rebirth. In it, Lorne M. Buchman quotes Joseph Di Prisco, Alex Ullman reflects on a fellowship at McKinley High School, and students have their poems juxtaposed with those of their teachers. The volume discusses the craft of creative writing through an analysis of entry points, and then does what the best books always proclaim to do—show, not tell.Other celebrated authors found in these pages include: Danielle Evans, Joyce Carol Oates, Lauren Groff, Daniel Mason, Anthony Marra, Lise Gaston, and Lorne M. Buchman. In addition, several New Literary Project luminaries shine within the book, such as Jessica Laser, Noah Warren, Ian S. Maloney, and Diane Del Signore. The New Literary Project promotes storytellers and storytelling across the generations, and across a tremendous spectrum: from incarcerated young men and women to high school-age students to creative writers teaching high school to distinguished mid-career authors. Simpson Fellows from UC Berkeley lead workshops for fledgling writers, Jack Hazard Fellows receive $5,000 in support of an ongoing writing project, and the annual Joyce Carol Oates Prize Recipient receives an award of $50,000 in support of a burgeoning career.

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Simpsonistas: Tales from the Simpson Literary Project, Vol. 2 highlights brilliant work by associates of the Simpson Project: Joyce Carol Oates, Anthony Marra, Laila Lalami, Sigrid Nunez, and many others, including Simpson Fellows as well as young writers appearing for the first time in print.Simpsonistas is the anthology of the New Literary Project, which is committed to the proposition that storytelling is the foundation of a literate society: newliteraryproject.org.The New Literary Project promotes storytellers and storytelling across the generations, and across a tremendous spectrum: from incarcerated young men and women to high school-age students to creative writers teaching high school to distinguished mid-career authors. Simpson Fellows from UC Berkeley lead workshops for fledgling writers, Jack Hazard Fellows receive $5,000 in support of an ongoing writing project, and the annual Joyce Carol Oates Prize Recipient receives an award of $50,000 in support of a burgeoning career.

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