The people we allow into our lives shape us. They become a part of our identity whether or not we realize it. I look back on the teenage me and am amazed at how little I knew of classic literature. Oh, sure, there were lessons in Shakespeare and a truly painful course on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, but apart from that my interests were average. I spent most of my time reading flimsy clean romances. Continue reading
The world had never seen, nor will see again, an author such as Terry Pratchett. At thirteen years old, readers caught its first glimpse of his satiric humor when he wrote a story about the Devil asking for help in marketing hell, becoming distraught with all the “noisy people” now crowding his “amusement park,” and begging the marketing agent to fix it. Continue reading
Everyone knows Frida Kahlo. After all, she’s the woman with all the monkeys and the unibrow right? Her face is everywhere from bags to coasters to Barbie dolls. But Frida Kahlo symbolizes much more than a doll or a pillowcase to people around the world. Continue reading
While now known through Jane Austen aficionados as one of Austen’s favorite novelists, for a while the world largely forgot Frances “Fanny” Burney. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Fanny’s social satires and comedy of manners were the books to read. Young Jane Austen subscribed to a circulating library to read Fanny’s latest novel. It influenced her enough she borrowed from said works and incorporated them in her own canon. The wealthy man’s pursuit of a social inferior, the buffoonish suitor, vulgar relatives, the name Willoughby, the phrase “Pride and Prejudice” itself—all originated with Fanny Burney. Continue reading
Authors. Poets. Playwrights. Artists. Somewhere along the way in life, they touch us. They leave their impressions on us. They inspire us. But where it happened, what were the circumstances, and which literary and artistic marks they left on our hearts, are our own individual tales. Continue reading
