Blog Posts

Large house in dim light

One really good—I mean evil— literary villain

By Kate Blackwood / October 31, 2021

I’m not into horror, so scenes of fake blood and ax murderers do not move me. But a malevolent character who only wants others to suffer—this is truly scary.

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small, fierce bird

Book Review: Hamnet

By Kate Blackwood / June 30, 2021

Her grief fades with her life. His echoes through audiences forever.

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Blue and gold decorative round chart showing 12 zodiac symbols

Book Review: The Luminaries

By Kate Blackwood / May 31, 2021

Perhaps star charts are, after all, an effective way to impose narrative order on a chaotic, destructive frontier setting

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Wooden ship hull jutting improbably out of a placid river landscape

Marginal and messy places: ‘The Inner Coast’

By Kate Blackwood / April 20, 2021

“All coasts are marginal and messy places, which is why people like me are drawn to them, I suspect,” writes Donovan Hohn. I feel the same.

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