Tony Woodlief | Author

literature

Writing it slant

Here’s a little story I wrote about how my homeless alcoholic brother taught me to love a poem. If you’re not sure it’s worth the click, here’s an excerpt: “I’ve gotten misty at poems, even gasped once. But never have I experienced my brother’s visceral joy. What would the anointed experts say about this? Is …

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Ten stories you can read if you don’t like men with hairy bellies and cats

A lot of people are talking about a short story in The New Yorker right now. A short story. If you care at all about writing and literature and the seemingly inexorable Western slide into voluntary aliteracy, this seems like a good thing. But so maybe “Cat Person” isn’t for you. Some people want to read …

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Hammering art

They say all great men have a morning routine, so I figured I ought to rush right out and get me one of those. I’ll belabor the elements of that routine while subtly flattering myself for it some other time; the point today is that it often includes listening to Writer’s Almanac while I make …

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Elect art

My latest short story is in the current edition of Image, for those of you with a literary bent. And for those of you bent theologically, in this case, because in my story John Calvin attends a writing workshop so he can learn to craft Christian romance novels. That’s not what the story is about, …

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Cormac McCarthy

“He sat in the dappled light among the stones. A bird sang. Some leaves were falling. He sat with his hands palm up on the grass beside him like a stricken puppet and he thought no thoughts at all.” Suttree, Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy

“Hey Worm, did you see old Crumbliss in the paper this mornin? What’s he done now? They found him about six oclock this mornin under a tree in a big alfalfa field. He found the only tree in the whole field and run into it. They said when the cops come and opened the door …

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Wise Blood

“She felt justified in getting anything at all back that she could, money or anything else, as if she had once owned the earth and been dispossessed of it. She couldn’t look at anything steadily without wanting it, and what provoked her most was the thought that there might be something valuable hidden near her, …

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We was never much for yer books n such . . .

Writer and teacher Nancie Atwell on the distressing need to convince government education officials of the benefits of literature: “. . . giving corporate interests a role in setting education policy is like letting foxes supervise the henhouse. These foxes are not vested in children’s reading books. They are interested in profitmaking—in selling prefab curricula, …

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