By Chris Prickett | On July 20, 2026 | Updated July 24, 2026 | Comments (2)
Like many of the main characters in her novels, Australian-American writer Shirley Hazzard (1931–2016) traveled and moved homes from a young age. At first, this relocation was due to the decisions of parents responding to work or world events, and later to the dictates of her employers.
Photo at right, Shirley Hazzard in 2007, photo by Christopher Peterson. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Read More→
By Eponynonymous | On September 22, 2025 | Updated June 19, 2026 | Comments (0)
This essay is excerpted from “An Unreasonably Deep Analysis of Goodnight Moon: On Finding (or Creating) Meaning in Dreams” by Eponynonymous.
My daughter used to fight sleep like grim death. Every night as she was dozing off, she would suddenly recoil, bouncing back from that hypnagogic state with flailing arms and banshee screams. It was as if she saw what lay on the other side of sleep and what she saw was death. Oblivion. I don’t think the analogy is too dramatic.
To a baby, bedtime really is a little death. Her sense of self is tenuous, her dreams not so easily distinguished from reality, and her mind freighted with new experiences that some psychologists say have the effect of slowing time. As it was, my daughter came to recognize those grim portents of sleep, and one of them was Goodnight Moon. Read More→
By Teagan ONeil | On June 30, 2025 | Comments (0)
Johanna Spyri and Frances Hodgson Burnett illustrate the effects of nature on well-being through the symbolism and imagery of nature in their novels, Heidi and The Secret Garden. In both of these beloved classic novels, the authors show how the characters’ interactions with nature sets them on transformative journeys that help heal physical ailments and mental distress.
Spyri’s Heidi (1881) follows a young girl who has lost her parents and is taken to the Swiss Alps to stay with her grandfather. Mary Bernath, literature professor at Bloomsburg State University, writes that “Heidi’s home in the Alps is an idyllic place, far from the modern world and its concerns.”
After a short time, she is sent to the city of Frankfurt to be a companion to Klara, a slightly older girl who is unable to walk. While in Frankfurt, Heidi falls ill and yearns to return to the natural world of the Alps. Read More→
By Alex J. Coyne | On June 1, 2025 | Comments (0)
Chief Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa (1931 – 1993, familiarly known as Flora Nwapa, was a Nigerian-born author, poet, short story writer, and activist.
She was known as the “Mother of African Literature,” and was the first African woman author whose writing published in England.
Here’s more about her writing, including the influences behind her debut novel, Efuru. Read More→
By Francis Booth | On May 7, 2025 | Updated May 8, 2025 | Comments (0)
The Technique of the Love Affair (1928) sums up the new attitude toward men, sex, and relationships of the modern woman in the late 1920s perfectly, not to say outrageously and shockingly.
It gives cynical and completely amoral guidance to young women on how to master and dominate men without ever falling under their spell; the woman who follows its advice will always be in control, never be in love and never be subservient to a man, says the author.
Although the book always has its tongue firmly in its cheek, and although it is no doubt intended as comic relief, it still probably presents and represents the thinking of the dedicated 1920s flapper better than any other book of the period, fictional or otherwise. Read More→
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