Articles by Janet Potter
October 11, 2011
Scrabble For Cheaters 0
Next Saturday I will be competing (fiercely, one hopes) in Scrabble For Cheaters, a charity tournament to benefit 826CHI, Chicago’s chapter of the national creative writing organization (founded by Dave Eggers) that provides free tutoring, field trips, writing workshops and the like to over 4,000 Chicago students a year. To support their work, and augment [...]
September 27, 2011
Play It Again: Neal Stephenson’s Reamde 3
Every video game has a guiding story. “PLUMBER’S GIRLFRIEND CAPTURED BY APE!” was the original game story, and they have evolved from that into worlds of moral quandary.
September 19, 2011
Loving a Monster: Alina Bronsky’s The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine 1
Imagine Sophia from The Golden Girls in Soviet Russia – spewing insults, exaggerating her own worth, bemoaning the state of things. Instead of being surround by three salty dames who deflect her barbs with their own, she’s surrounded by a husband, daughter, and granddaughter whose will to live she has methodically trampled.
August 31, 2011
Conversations with Cocktails: Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility 2
It’s reminiscent of Fitzgerald or Waugh, in that “what gay parties we all had in those days, until our inner demons simply couldn’t be repressed any longer” vein.
August 30, 2011
A Visit to Gettysburg 1
The Gettysburg gaze is a particular brand of narration that pervades the town, describing every skirmish as good vs. good. Good wins.
July 29, 2011
A Thousand and One Knights: George R.R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons 12
Seabiscuit wasn’t about a horse. You don’t have to like football to love Friday Night Lights. A great narrative is great in any genre, and A Song of Ice and Fire is perhaps the most compelling, fully realized narrative in modern literature.
