Arts >>

Books

Richard Russo pairs with his artist daughter

Marrying story + art
When the biggest news in the literary community is that the federal Department of Justice is suing Apple and five major publishing houses for fixing prices of e-books, or that the Pulitzer Prize for fiction went to exactly no one this year, it's easy to wonder whether we're getting away from the primary purpose of writing, and reading, books.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | May 02, 2012

A talk with Sam McPheeters

This punk is a writer
One of the most interesting people to emerge from the second generation of US punk rock, Sam McPheeters has had a pretty full life.

By: NICHOLAS SCHROEDER | April 04, 2012

Add it to the reading list

The sixth annual Maine Festival of the Book
It'll be no surprise to any of our readers that we here at the Portland Phoenix are big fans of reading — and we're grateful for the time you take to read our work every week!

By: JEFF INGLIS | April 02, 2012

Chopsticks: A new and different 'novel'

A pair of hands at work
There's very little we writers like to do more than gnash our teeth about the future of our profession.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | March 28, 2012

Gibson Fay-LeBlanc plays the Ventriloquist

Speaking openly
"The center of everything," writes Gibson Fay-LeBlanc in Death of a Ventriloquist , "is the mouth."

By: MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 29, 2012

An object lesson in research as storytelling

Living history
John Brown's body may now lie a-mouldering in his grave, as the song suggests, but in life the Connecticut-born Kansan settler who led an assault on a federal installation in Virginia almost never stopped moving in his passionate zeal to rid the United States of the scourge of slavery.

By: JEFF INGLIS | March 28, 2012

Behrens's solid second effort

Driving forward
If there is a male equivalent to "chick lit," Peter Behrens's latest novel, The O'Briens , is probably it, a detail-rich, character-driven historical novel that lightly touches issues of family loyalty and individual aspirations.

By: JEFF INGLIS | March 28, 2012

Maine writer plays with parapsychology in her latest novel

Head inside
Of all the fantastical characters who populate the paranormal literary landscape, psychics might be the most relatable.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | March 28, 2012

What should art be about? UMaine prof seeks answers in history

Benton's question
There are a few things to remember about Thomas Hart Benton, an iconic American artist who died in 1975 at the age of 85.

By: KEN GREENLEAF | March 28, 2012

The second installment of a thriving Maine literary journal

Mixing old and New
Volume Two of The New Guard literary review is 140 pages longer than its predecessor, as though its creators decided to demonstrate its growing relevance by gleefully stuffing it with more material.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | February 22, 2012

More blogs = more books

Book fans use the Internet to go crazy!
On August 30, my debut young-adult novel, Fury, was published by Simon Pulse, the edgy YA imprint of Simon & Schuster. I'm a journalist by trade, and I knew next-to-nothing about book publishing until about a year ago.

By: ELIZABETH MILES | September 21, 2011

Young Adulteration

Kid lit, cultural literacy, and the rise of books that are fun to read
In the late 1980s, when I was nine or 10, my mom bought me my own copy of A First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Our Children Need To Know .

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | September 21, 2011

Will Kindles kill libraries?

In this corner: libraries struggling to bring in patrons. In the other: Kindles looking to expand their market. Will it be a bloodbath, or can they hug it out?
This week, OverDrive itself will host its own conference to help libraries deal with a massive onslaught of patrons clamoring to check out books on their Kindles. Can embattled public institutions handle such a drastic change?

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | July 27, 2011

David Foster Wallace's The Pale King

Final words
All I can do is tell you how I read the book.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | April 13, 2011

Back to the land

Digging up cathartic childhood memories
There is an idyllic pull to the homesteading lifestyle, especially when such a back-to-the-land experiment is undertaken on the coast of Maine, where rocky shores abut dense woods and merely breathing the air imparts rural spirit and pluck.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | April 06, 2011

Sarah Braunstein's uncomfortable, beautiful hyperreality

(Bitter)sweet emotion
There's an unsettling honesty that spills from Portland author Sarah Braunstein's first novel, The Sweet Relief of Missing Children .

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | February 23, 2011

Review: Caroline Leavitt's family Pictures

Photo finish
Love, family, and the moments that change lives forever — these are the potent ingredients that Caroline Leavitt stirs up again and again in her fiction.

By: JULIA HANNA | January 27, 2011

Hip-hop history

Dan Charnas's story is bigger than the music
Dan Charnas is aware that some disgruntled rap purists may eschew his epic tome on planet hip-hop's animated cast of titanic dick swingers.

By: CHRIS FARAONE | January 11, 2011

Review: ''American Gothic'' painter Grant Wood gets to leave the closet

American gay
Who was Grant Wood? Millions of Americans know him as the artist who painted American Gothic — and that's about it. But since his death, from pancreatic cancer, in 1942, he's become the poster boy for the right and the whipping boy of the left.

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | January 07, 2011