Something I’ve learned about writing: You can’t assume that friends and family members will want to read your books and essays. Some won’t read them at all. (K doesn’t read my non-fiction writing because she…
George Bernard Shaw wrote more than 60 plays, but he also wrote a lot of personal letters. I read once that he sent somewhere in the region of 250,000 letters and postcards during his lifetime, the majority in…
It might have been 40 years ago. I was walking by a church in Manhattan and noticed a sign on the door indicating that Auden, WH Auden, one of the greatest English language poets of the 20th century, was…
When I first read that Anna Weyant, a 27-year-old artist represented by the influential Gagosian Gallery, had sold a painting for $1.6 million, I was eager to know more about her. I first looked at her work…