I think that if you're an editor, and you do what's right, you occasionally have to say 'no' to people. To the good people, the professionals, that's fine. But the people who are 'hacks,' they won't like that."" As an American comic book writer, editor, and businessman, Jim Shooter (b. 1951) remains among the most important figures in the history ......
Known as ""Captain Fiction,"" Gordon Lish (b. 1934) is among the most influential--and controversial--figures in modern American letters. As an editor at Esquire (1969-1977), Alfred A. Knopf (1977-1995), and The Quarterly (1987-1995) and as a teacher both in and outside the university system, he has worked closely with many of the most pioneering ......
Mirrors, Masks, and Mazes in the Autobiographical Graphic Novel
Literary scholar Michael A. Chaney examines graphic novels to illustrate that in form and function they inform readers on how they ought to be read. His arguments result in an innovative analysis of the various knowledges that comics produce and the methods artists and writers employ to convey them. Theoretically eclectic, this study attends to ......
Francophone Caribbean Writers Interrogating Their Past
The Francophone Caribbean boasts a trove of literary gems. Distinguished by innovative, elegant writing and thought-provoking questions of history and identity, this exciting body of work demands scholarly attention. Its authors treat the traumatic legacies of shared and personal histories pervading Caribbean experience in striking ways, ......
Listen to This stands out as the first book exclusively dedicated to Davis's watershed 1969 album, Bitches Brew. Victor Svorinich traces its incarnations and inspirations for ten-plus years before its release. The album arrived as the jazz scene waned beneath the rise of rock and roll and as Davis (1926-1991) faced large changes in social ......
The legendary Dennis Hopper (1936-2010) had many identities. He first broke into Hollywood as a fresh-faced young actor in the 1950s, redefined himself as a rebel director with Easy Rider in the late 1960s, and became a bad boy outcast for much of the 1970s. He returned in the 1980s with standout performances in films like Blue Velvet and ......
Four-time winner at the Cannes Film Festival, Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan (b. 1960) began his career while still an undergraduate at the University of Toronto. His first love was playwriting, but he began to see that he could investigate themes emotionally through film- that the camera could play a role. He learned his craft in his own ......
At Home Abroad brings attention to a little known period in the career of America's most notable humorist. It follows the writer-performer Down Under on a journey through thirty lectures in colonial Australia and New Zealand. This appealing book is a daily account of Twain's activities and is based upon his notebooks his letters, and newspaper ......
Although Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) holds an undisputed place in the pantheon of major filmmakers, mention of his name unjustly evokes images of monolithic gloom and despair. All of his pictures, including his comedies, deal seriously with faith, morality, and mortality, but audiences and critics too often neglect the extraordinary wit and ......
