The Sunday New York Times Book Review didn’t have a lot to say about poetry or fiction today. Scattered amidst a mountain range of political essays and history book reviews were eight small, tepid articles about fiction. We politely appreciated a few new multicultural novels from India (Amitav Ghosh, Siddhartha Deb), South Africa (Achmat Dangor), Zimbabwe (Abduirazak Gurnah), Turkey (Moris Farhi) and Japan (Carl Shuker), slammed Tilly Bagshawe’s newest piece of chick-lit, “Adored”, and then sat down with Book Review regular Liesl Shillinger …

First, just a couple of things that annoyed me about Friday night’s Def Poetry … and then I’m going to mention a couple of things I really liked.

What annoys me: the duets. I’ve seen this work well in live shows, when two poets get onstage together to see what kind of chemistry their combined voices will create. I’ve performed in duets myself, and I think it works best when the two poets aren’t exactly sure what they’re about to do until they start …

I just read Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier for the second time. I’m convinced this book stands very tall amongst all books recently published, and I would eagerly put money down that it will be considered a true literary classic by future generations.

One reason this opinion may seem surprising to some is that Cold Mountain was a #1 bestseller, and contains many elements of “genre fiction”: a steamy love story, a picturesque travelogue, a few morose battle scenes from the Civil War. The …

Some time ago the confidants who critique my fiction writing accused me of including too much gratuitous sex. Guilty as charged. (Although I do make an effort to adorn it in classic-style prose as opposed to the gutter-mouthed writing style of many modern authors.)

I decided to try and capitalize on my carnal inclinations and answered an ad for a writer at an “adult magazine” based in Philadelphia.

The interview went well. They said ‘let’s see some of your fantasies in writing’ and I probably frightened them …

We’ve been known to ask about what you’re reading a lot, but we’re also interested in what you’re writing. Since many LitKicks members are also poets, aspiring novelists and experimental writers (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg), from time to time we like to catch up with everyone and hear what you’ve been working on. Are you working on submitting your poems or stories to journals and publishers? Are you looking to self-publish or put together a chapbook? …

A year ago today, a weary LitKicks staff headed gratefully off to sleep after completing an exercise in literary collaboration and sleeplessness we called the 24 Hour Poetry Party. We followed this by shutting the site down for about a month and a half, before gradually reinventing it in the shape it wears now.

A year later, I still think that was some good poem we all wrote on that bleary crazy afternoon, night and morning. I also feel like calling attention to …

Today’s New York Times Book Review gives us a lively, rich mix of titles, even if most of them are eventually dismissed with the Book Review’s trademark yawn.

The selections include a novelization of the Patty Hearst story, Trance by Christopher Sorrentino, which is described as following a Don DeLillo template but does not sound as exciting as it should be, and a story collection, We’re All In This Together by Owen King. Owen King is the son of Stephen, and is also apparently his …

Beatvibe sent us a link about a Faulkner writing contest and its politicizing winner. We’re not exactly sure what this story signifies. Perhaps nothing.

A quick note to let you know that Levi will be posting his weekly review of the latest Def Poetry Jam episode as usual, however it may be delayed a bit. We invite you to watch along tonight on HBO at 11:30pm ET (check your local listings for other air times) and share your thoughts on the show, its performers and what you think of the review. We’ll compare notes, it’ll be fun.

To kick off my quest to read the classics, I have been slowly (and almost reluctantly) working my way through Virgil’s Aeneid. I should admit that I’ve read at least half of it before, for a class in which I was required to write a paper about Queen Dido. But that was over five years ago, so I figured I’d start the whole thing again, because I’d probably need a refresher.

The deal is, reading a book in order to write …