writing community – Page 50

Silence behind me, silence before me

Some thoughts on writing the end of a thing, inspired by one of my favorite novels of 2024

One of my favorite novels of 2024 is Martyr!, by Kaveh Akbar. It is the story of a twentysomething poet and recovering alcoholic named Cyrus (Karoosh in Persian). When he was just an infant, Cyrus immigrated to the U.S. with his father after his mother was killed when the plane she was on was shot down over the Persian Gulf . Cyrus becomes obsessed with martyrs and martyrdom, and travels from his Indiana home to Brooklyn to meet an Iranian-American artist, Orkideh, who has terminal cancer and is living out her last days in an art museum for her final art exhibit.

I want to share one passage from Martyr! that triggered in me some thoughts about the writing process and its mysteries:

Is the literary man an endangered species?

A recent New York Times op-ed raises some concerns.

An opinion piece in The New York Times over the weekend — titled “The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone” (gift link) — has me thinking about the role of gender and, dare I say, diversity in the field of literature today.

The author, David J. Morris, who teaches creative writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, writes that “literary fiction has become a largely female pursuit.”