Muriel Spark’s approach? Not for him. We’ve written about Trevor Cribben Merrill‘s novel Minor Indignities here. We’ve written about Trevor here and here and here). And we’ve also written about fascinating substack, Writing Fiction After Girard, and we recommend a look, especially today, as he writes about “Dana Gioia and René Girard on the Art of Revision.” An excerpt: The British novelist Muriel Spark (author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie among many others) is said to have revised her work very sparingly, if at all. In this interview on the BBC she cheekily summarize ..read more

On April 19, Stanford celebrated the remarkable and many-faceted career of Professor Robert Pogue Harrison, Rosina Pierotti Professor in Italian Literature in the Department of French & Italian. We published Andrea Capra‘s tribute to him “How to Think with Robert Pogue Harrison,” on the Book Haven. Capra, a grateful former student, is now Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Princeton. Today, we share the presentation from a colleague who attended the festivities. Pierre Saint-Amand, Yale University’s Benjamin F. Barge Professor of French (he was formerly at ..read more

Mike Peich tirelessly shares his fine press books to visitors. Here in 2014 Way back in 1995, a literary movement was born: the West Chester Poetry Conference, with 85 poets and scholars in attendance gathering in the small burg outside Philadelphia. The original core faculty members included Annie Finch, R. S. Gwynn, Mark Jarman, Robert McDowell, and Timothy Steele. Mike Peich’s “Aralia” fine press books on display They had a mission. In a world where poetry has become almost irrelevant, the poets gathered in West Chester wanted to return it to a general audience. Their weapons of choice? Tr ..read more

Steve Wasserman among his 20,000 books (Photo: Ximema Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight) The story of small publishing houses in today’s world often aren’t happy ones. Here’s the story of one that is. I know Malcolm Margolin, the legendary founder of the valiant publishing house, Heyday Books in Berkeley. I know his successor, Steve Wasserman, even better. I wrote for Steve when he was the editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books when it was the best newspaper in the nation. And now I’ve published with Heyday – well, I wrote about that here and here. Czesław Miłosz: A California LIfe is now a ..read more

He’s been called one of the America’s leading humanists, and now he’s taking a step back. Robert Pogue Harrison, Rosina Pierotti Professor in Italian Literature in the Department of French & Italian at Stanford and has formally retired and is now professor emeritus – but thank goodness he promises not to go away! We need him! The all-day event to celebrate him on Friday, April 19, was intellectually rich and joyous, as everyone would have predicted. But perhaps the talk that might have the most immediate applications in today’s world was Andrea Capra’s lively presentation – “Matters of ..read more

The eminent Japanese author Jun’ichirō Tanizaki has been called an “ecological prophet.” Please join us for a discussion of his 1933 classic In Praise of Shadows. It’s coming up fast! Another Look will discuss Tanizaki’s 73-page essay at 7 p.m. (PST) on Monday, April 29, at Levinthal Hall in the Stanford Humanities Center at 424 Santa Teresa Street on the Stanford campus. This is a hybrid event, so you can come in person or via zoom, but we encourage you to register either way (link below).  Some more praise for the book: “Tanizaki sums up what he feels Japan has lost in becoming ..read more

April is here! That means the 21st annual “A Company of Authors,” hosted by Peter Stansky, Frances and Charles Field Professor of History, Emeritus, is making its annual appearance with the daffodils and California poppies. Master of Ceremonies Stansky Drop by to hear the latest Stanford offerings on Saturday afternoon, April 20th, at Levinthal Hall in the Stanford Humanities Center at 424 Santa Teresa (for those of you who attend Another Look events, you know the venue). Or attend virtually by zoom. Below, the bill of fare for the afternoon – stop by for a session or two, or stay the whole ..read more

Marjorie Perloff, one of America’s leading poetry critics, has died at 92. At Stanford, she was the Sadie Dernham Patek Professor of Humanities emerita. There will be many tributes in the days and weeks to come. Meanwhile, a few words of an early Facebook tribute from Stanford’s Hilton Obenzinger, who interviewed her for his “How I Write” program: Marjorie Perloff She lived a full life, fleeing Vienna as a child and ending up a leading critic. She always had an acute vision of current poetics, and she could be raucous and demanding and irritating and sometimes oddly narrow-minded, racially bl ..read more

You could easily miss this long article with the long title, “Writer, podcaster “Robert Harrison challenges A.I. brain delusion, the Humanities’ deathbed and Fear & Loathing with the Love Bots.” I wouldn’t pass it up I were you. Scott Thomas Anderson has a conversation with Robert Pogue Harrison, Stanford’s leading humanist and Dante scholar, and Aqsa Ijaz, who writes for The Marginalia Review (we’ve written about her on the Book Haven here) and it shouldn’t be missed. An excerpt: “We were talking about the horrifying and exciting possibilities of Chat GPT, and I asked, ‘What if ..read more

Merrill (far left) with IWP alumni from Norway, Honk Kong, and Japan “Only connect,” E. M. Forster famously wrote. Forster’s dictum is a plan of action for writer, poet, editor, and translator Christopher Merrill, who is the director of the International Writing Program (IWP), based at the University of Iowa. It’s been callled the “United Nations of Writers.” The late W.S. Merwin called him “one of the most gifted, audacious, and accomplished poets of an extraordinary rich generation.” He’s in Hong Kong right now to celebrate the IWP’s 29th anniversary. IWP organizes a number of program ..read more