Friday, July 5, 2013

Phillip Lopate on the Art of the Essay

Major American essayist Phillip Lopate, who presents a free reading in Saratoga on Monday 7/8, has published two new books in 2013-- the collection, Portrait Inside My Head: Essays, and the writer's guide, To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction.

Morris Dickstein reviewed both in the New York Times in March:

"His gods are Montaigne, the father of the essay, whose field of research was his own mind, and William Hazlitt, who, besides being an incomparable literary critic, sketched vehement novelistic impressions of what no one else thought worth noticing, from boxing matches and Indian jugglers to 'the pleasure of hating.'"

More:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/books/review/essays-and-a-writers-guide-by-phillip-lopate.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Complete schedule of free readings:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/sumread.html