By Nava Atlas | On May 12, 2017 | Updated March 4, 2026 | Comments (0)
Should a writer read reviews of her work, whether by actual critics, or reader reviewers? Back in the day, when book reviews resided quietly in print media, an author could consciously avoid reading reviews of her work.
Unless a loud-mouthed aunt or neighbor broadcast the verdict, one could remain blissfully unaware of others’ opinions, if one had that sort of discipline.
Carson McCullers said: “I never read my reviews. If they’re good, they might give me the big-head, and if they are unfavorable, I would be depressed. So why bother?”
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By Nava Atlas | On May 10, 2017 | Updated September 25, 2026 | Comments (0)
Have you ever heard of Edna Ferber? For most contemporary readers, the answer will be no. Her work was apparently of its time and place. Yet in that time and place (her prodigious output was concentrated mainly from the 1920s to the 1950s) her works were hugely popular, and financial gold mines.
Ferber was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1885. Her family moved around the midwest before settling in Appleton, Wisconsin, where she spent her teen years.
Her senior essays so impressed the editor of the Appleton Daily Crescent that he offered the 17-year-old Ferber a reporting job. And so, a career was born. Read More→
By Emma Ward | On April 28, 2017 | Updated October 18, 2022 | Comments (0)
Having been forgotten, then rediscovered in a major way, it’s rare to find interviews with Zora Neale Hurston written in her time.
Here’s a newspaper article in which she was interviewed as she burst on the literary scene in the 1934, when her first novel, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, was published.
This article was published in The Richmond Item, Nov. 14, 1934. Of course, it contains some of the parlance and attitudes of that time. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On April 22, 2017 | Updated January 8, 2026 | Comments (3)
“Crazy for this Democracy” is a biting, trenchant essay by Zora Neale Hurston, first published in The Negro Digest in December, 1945. Following is a sampling of quotes from this wonderful piece of writing.
It was published when, after having served the country overseas to fight tyranny, Black servicemen and women returned to find that they still didn’t have the basic rights at home that they had fought for abroad. Segregation was still the rule rather than the exception in education, employment, housing, and more.
Though this essay speaks directly to that era’s Jim Crow laws in the U.S., it is still, sadly, applicable in many ways to today’s climate in America, where “othering” is growing more acceptable.
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By Emma Ward | On March 30, 2017 | Updated October 4, 2022 | Comments (2)
Edited and introduced by Alice Walker, I Love Myself: When I am Laughing … and Then Again When I am Looking Mean and Impressive is an anthology of writings by Zora Neale Hurston.
This 1979 collection pays tribute to Hurston’s role in Black literature of the early twentieth century.
Hurston wasn’t known for being humble. She was upset over receiving second place in literary contests, yet confidently flaunted her talents. Walker wrote: “To know that second place, in such a society, has often required more work and innate genius than the first is to trust your self-evaluation …” Read More→
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