literary arts

Literary Arts

For fifty years, Literary Arts at Brown University has been a creative and intellectual center for a diverse and innovative literary community.

Along with a handful of other writing programs nationwide, Brown provides a home for writers who are envisioning new paths in fiction, poetry, digital language arts, and mixed media. 

Course Information

Writing sample process for workshops, introductory workshops & lit courses.

Undergraduate

The Department in Literary Arts offers courses in fiction, poetry, screenwriting, digital & cross-disciplinary writing, and translation, as well as seminar courses in reading and writing about literature.

Graduate students in Brown's Literary Arts MFA program may choose to focus in one of three tracks – Fiction, Poetry, or Digital/Cross Disciplinary Writing.

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Sawako nakayasu collaborates on new work for opening of lindemann center, colin channer's poetry book, console reviewed in the new yorker and finalist for neiba prize, recent alumna danielle emerson named associates of boston public library writer-in-residence, upcoming events, follow us on social media.

Visual, Performing, and Literary/Language Arts

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Introduction

This section is split into three sub-sections, "Visual Arts," "Performing Arts," and "Literary/Language Arts."  The term "visual arts" can cover a vast array of items from installations to paintings to advertisements on billboards to computer generated graphics.  The items included under this category can be interpreted and analyzed in a myriad of ways. 

The phrase "performing arts" encompasses performances from dramatic productions to spoken word to films and television productions and beyond. 

The "literary arts" are what one might classify more along the lines of literature, including poetry and prose.  These works can range from epic poems to epistolary novels to articles to comics.  

The ingredients that go into sentences, paragraphs, and pages that make up literary works fall under the heading of "language arts." The term "language arts" covers just about anything having to do with language from an essay on linguistics to newspaper articles to translation studies and beyond.

Each of these categories has quite a bit of fluidity to it, so one might argue that a certain film should be included under "visual arts," as well as "performing arts," especially when a film has stunning visuals.  A novel might also include images or be partially told in images, and thus the book has an element of visual arts in it.  In spite of such fluidity, the categories help us navigate through the different texts that we might encounter and help guide us toward what kind of criticism, analysis, and research we might need to do.

Under each sub-category, you will encounter general research information and sources.  For more specific information, see the subject specific guides, such as "Poetry," "World Literature," etc.

As always, if you have questions, please do not hesitate to ask a librarian for assistance.

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What is Literary Art: A Summary

The Fences (2019) Digital Collage Jose-Noel Rocha

I wrote a horrible 25 page paper in college because I believe in expanding the possibilities of interactions between words and people. I’ll spare you the anguish of having to read through that paper, and summarize it here and hopefully provide something interesting along the way.

Article Summary:

Defining Literary Art

Explanation and Analysis

Personal Works

Lets’s begin with a simple start, defining terms, Literary Art can be defined in two distinct categories: as a genre and as a composition.

The Definition of Literary Art as a Genre:

Literary Art is an interdisciplinary genre that intertwines practices from art and literature in application, theoretical approach, and experience. - Jose-Noel Rocha

The Definition of Literary Art as a Composition:

Literary Art Compositions are multimodal and multimedia works that combine visual and narrative principles of art and literature in which language is used as both aesthetic object and signifier. - Jose-Noel Rocha

That’s a lot of big words. Let’s break down a few more that you might need to sift through this blog:

Interdisciplinary: combining two or more disciplines, like Karate + Violin = Karolin.

Multi-Modal: having different modes of occurrence, like a car that’s also a boat.

These extra terms might help you in the next section of this article.

Explaining & Analyzing Literary Art

How to know what you’re looking at:.

Literary Art Genre Scale Infographic MrFancyShoes.com

Can anything be literary art?

No, not really. Just like every song isn’t a symphony - there’s ways of signaling what is and isn’t literary art. We have to break down the definition to understand what literary art embodies. The Literary Art Genre Scale above can give you a rough idea of where to place literary art amongst work that can combine pictures and words. While the picture represents the intersectionality of the work, the definition can help us break down its physical manifestation.

Multi-Modal and Multimedia

Literary Art is about levels of intersectionality and conversation but primarily consists of two types of media: text and visual art. The combination both text and art makes the work multimedia , but what makes the work multi-modal is the capacity of the art and text to tell unique stories combined into one narrative. That’s one piece of the criteria.

Language as Aesthetic Object and Signifier

Let’s break this down in this way: to use language as an aesthetic object is to use text as a piece of the composition, to use it as a signifier is to use language as a sound, word or image. So your words as a literary artist must:

be a part of the artwork/it’s metaphor.

your words have to mean something, represent it.

Next we’ll look at a great example of an artwork that can be considered Literary Art.

Listening Post (2009) - Mark Hansen Ben Rubin

This work of Literary Art speaks on multiple levels and I’ll do my best to summarize and how they all coexist to fit within the criteria of literary art. What is this artwork?

Listening Post is an art installation that culls text fragments in real time from thousands of unrestricted Internet chat rooms, bulletin boards and other public forums. The texts are read (or sung) by a voice synthesizer, and simultaneously displayed across a suspended grid of more than two hundred small electronic screens. Listening Post cycles through a series of six movements, each a different arrangement of visual, aural, and musical elements, each with it's own data processing logic. - MediaArtTube

Breaking this down by the criteria that we just went over we’ll use the MediaArtTube definition of the work. Using text and digital screens makes the work multi-media, but the artists add two additional components to the work by using spoken word to create a musical element. This allows the work to exist in three modes:

The text within its own narrative frame work.

The spoken word and it’s capability for musical harmony through social discord.

The digital screen to represent social isolation in the electronic age.

The language is used as aesthetic object in two ways, once within the art through the digital screen component to represent digital communication and also in the musical component as both a musical note for the composition and to represent the individual digital voices. The text used on the digital screens is also its own narrative, each selected text a small story of one anonymous person. This text is catalogued, and serves as a literary work signifying humanity both individually and as a collective discord of narratives.

This is a great example of literary art because it works in three modalities: through the digital screens, the electronic text, and the elements of sound/spoken words. There are many examples of literary art that work in only two modalities, art books like some of the great ones at Printed Matter are my favorite. You can also find a lot of others if you just look for artwork that has multiple statements held within, and incorporates text in some way.

Since you made it this far, I might as well tell you I’ve created some art books of my own, and made them free digital installations also.

Literary Art Work by Jose-Noel Rocha

Untitled - Literary Art Poetry made of unique vignettes taken and created on an iPhone 5. Each a uniquely interpretable work experienced as art in combination with page order, reading rhythm, and text composition.

The Importance of Chromium - A literary art essay that combines two different works of art that are placed in combination on top of collages from historical and scientific images. The texts analyze the strength of ethnic women in a patriarchal society as well as the historical trauma of further generations as they navigate in a post colonial world. Warning : Graphic.

Closing notes:

That’s the summary of my 25 page paper, it’s not the full grasp of what the paper was about or what it created, but it helped me explain the creative work I do and how to place it in the world.

Thank you for your support and I hope you like and share!

- MrFancyShoes

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GRANTS FOR ARTS PROJECTS: Literary Arts

At the heart of the literary arts are organizations devoted to the power, beauty, and enjoyment of words and all those who use language in creative ways. Presses and journals, book festivals, literary centers, writers’ residencies and workshops, literary presenters and podcasters, service organizations, and the many other organizations that make up the complex literary arts ecosystem at the local, state, regional, and national levels all work to ensure our continued engagement with contemporary literature that reflects our nation’s rich diversity of voices. Their efforts, combined with those of non-arts partners, allow the literary arts to play a vital role in fostering the health of our nation, connecting us with our past and with each other, and nurturing a more empathetic future.

The NEA aims to strengthen the literary arts ecosystem through its support of literary arts organizations, and encourages people of all ages to write and engage with literary content in meaningful ways; helps writers at all stages of their careers create, publish, and connect directly with readers; helps readers in communities across the country have access to a wide spectrum of perspectives; and fosters collaborations with non-arts fields and systems—from mass transit and healthcare to environmental science and veterans’ affairs—and in a variety of venues, such as prisons, parks, senior centers, schools, and libraries. We welcome projects that seek to reach tribal, rural, urban, and suburban communities of all sizes across the country, and those that advance or sustain the creative work or careers of people with disabilities.

Applicants may request cost share/matching grants ranging from $10,000 to $100,000.

This grant opportunity is intended for organizations, not individuals. Each year, the NEA offers a separate fellowships program to published creative writers and translators of prose and poetry.

For information on how to submit an application, see “How to Apply” on the left.

Project Types

Literary Arts supports projects in two distinct categories: Literary Publishing (February deadline) and Public Engagement/Professional Development (July deadline). Applicants must choose the deadline that best matches their proposed project. For more guidance about which category or discipline is most appropriate for your project, please contact us .

Literary Publishing (February Deadline)

This project type and deadline is specifically for literary journals and independent and university presses that seek to publish, distribute, and/or promote literary content by contemporary writers and translators in such genres as poetry, fiction, drama, and creative nonfiction. Content may be published in print, digitally, and/or in audio formats, and should be in English, or English and another language.

In addition to one or all of the above activities, proposals may incorporate any of the following:

• The use of emergent technology to enhance day-to-day processes or operations, reach new audiences, and/or deepen community connections;
• Efforts to advance the field of literary publishing, including cross-sector collaborations and fresh approaches to the development of literary content;
• Capacity-building activities—such as leadership and professional development, transition planning, and emergency preparedness—for organizations with a mission to serve historically underserved groups and communities. “Underserved groups and communities,” includes populations whose opportunities to experience and participate in literary arts have been limited by factors such as geography, race or ethnicity, economics, or disability.

Competitive proposals will address elements as stated in the application review criteria , and typically include:

• Descriptions of specific books, journal issues, and/or literary content that the project will publish and/or promote;
• An articulation of the organization’s unique artistic vision and place within the literary landscape;
• Compensation to writers and individuals who work to carry out the project;
• Clearly stated marketing and/or promotion efforts that are reflected in the budget;
• Distributor information for print publications;
• Consideration of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in relation to the project and within your organization;
• Required work samples.

Public Engagement/Professional Development (July Deadline)

This project type and deadline is for literary arts centers, festivals, presenters, and other organizations that offer literary arts programming and services designed to promote and develop practitioners of, and audiences for, the literary arts. Programs and services may have a local, regional, and/or national focus.

Proposals may include but are not limited to:

• Reading series, festivals, podcasts and other activities and events that engage the public with contemporary writers and writing;
• Conferences, residencies, workshops, and other professional development activities for creative writers;
• Services to the literary arts field;
• Collaborations within and across sectors to share knowledge, tools, and resources;
• Efforts to address challenges in the literary arts with an eye towards a just and sustainable future for the field;
• Projects incorporating literary arts to advance the health and well-being of individuals and communities;
• Clear activities that are reflected in both the narrative and budget, and align with the applicant’s mission or artistic vision;
• A demonstrated understanding of the intended audience(s) and how you are serving audience needs;
• Well-defined goals and plans for assessing those goals;
• For local projects, an articulation of how activities will significantly impact the community and model best practices for the field.

In some cases, a project that involves literary arts may be better suited for review in another discipline. Review the Artistic Disciplines page for more information, including guidance on educational projects.

For questions, including help choosing the right discipline, contact NEA staff: Jessica Flynn,  [email protected]  or 202-682-5011

Compliance Reminders:

The NEA is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, and fostering mutual respect for the diverse beliefs and values of all individuals and groups. Please note the following:

• Civil Rights Laws and Policies : As a reminder, in the federal-funding context, a focus on a particular group or demographic may be permissible, but exclusion is not. This extends to hiring practices, artist selection processes, and audience engagement. Your application should make it clear that project activities are not exclusionary. Please review the Assurance of Compliance , as well as NEA Civil Rights guidance on our website, including this archived webinar: Things to Know Before You Apply: Federal Civil Rights and Your Grants Application .
• Accessibility: Federal regulations require that all NEA-funded projects be accessible to people with disabilities. Individuals with disabilities may be audiences, visitors, artists, performers, teaching artists, students, staff, and volunteers. Funded activities should be held in a physically accessible venue, and program access and effective communication should be provided for participants and audience members with disabilities. If your project is recommended for funding, you will be asked to provide detailed information describing how you will make your project physically and programmatically accessible to people with disabilities.
• National Historic Preservation Act and/or the National Environmental Policy Act Review: Recommended projects may be subject to the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and/or the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance review. See more information about NHPA/NEPA review under Award Administration .

Grants for Arts Projects applications will be accepted at two deadlines. All project types (described above) are accepted at both deadlines. Apply at the deadline that most closely fits the schedule of activities or timeline of your proposed project. Generally, an organization is limited to one application per year in the Grants for Arts Projects category.

First Grants for Arts Projects Deadline:

Second grants for arts projects deadline:, stay connected to the national endowment for the arts.

Synonyms of literary

• as in learned
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Thesaurus Definition of literary

Synonyms & Similar Words

• intellectual
• belletristic
• belle - lettristic
• declamatory
• grandiloquent
• high - flown
• highfalutin

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• nonliterary
• conversational

Thesaurus Entries Near literary

literalness

Cite this Entry

“Literary.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/literary. Accessed 30 Nov. 2023.

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7 UNESCO Cities of Literature to Visit This Year

Posted: November 27, 2023 | Last updated: November 27, 2023

As I wander around the cobblestone streets and castle-like buildings of Québec City , it's easy to imagine stories coming to life-especially when I come across a neo-Gothic church with a sign that says Maison de la Littérature . No longer a church, this literature center is much more than a library. Once inside, I discover various spaces to read and write, as well as exhibits on Québec's literary heritage, an impressive modern library, and even a comic-writing workshop on the second floor. I learn that it's the only center of its kind on the continent. I also learn that in 2017, Québec City was designated as a UNESCO City of Literature.

As it turns out, UNESCO has a designation for cities that contribute to the literary pantheon in some way. It's part of a wider Creative Cities Network , which also includes other creative fields like crafts and folk art, design, film, gastronomy, media arts, and music. Started in 2004, the criteria for a City of Literature include things like the quality, quantity, and diversity of publishing in a city; the quality and quantity of educational programs that focus on literature; the extent to which literature, drama, and/or poetry play a significant role in city life; whether literary events and festivals are hosted there; the number of libraries, bookstores, and cultural centers; and the media's involvement in promoting literature.

In other words, Québec City turned out to be a must-visit for readers, and it's not alone. During 2023, UNESCO added 8 more Cities of Literature, including Hobart, Australia, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, bringing the current total to 42 worldwide. Here's more about Québec City-and 6 other UNESCO Cities of Literature bursting with bookish appeal.

Québec City, Canada

French and English collide in this city that is the core of French-language literature in North America. Writers from Albert Camus to Charles Dickens to H.P. Lovecraft have been enchanted by the city, and it boasts over 100 guilds, publishers, and booksellers. Beyond the regular offerings at the Maison de la Littérature that I saw, the center hosts the Québec en Toutes Lettres literary festival in October.

. . . its giddy heights; its citadel suspended as it were in the air; its picturesque steep streets and frowning gateways; and the splendid views which burst upon the eye at every turn: is at once unique and lasting.

Visitors can also take a number of literary tours, including the Our Writings walking tour of the Literary and Historical Society of Québec's Morrin Centre ; founded in 1824, it contains a gorgeous Victorian-era library. Mystery lovers might want to take the Bury Your Dead tour , which follows the trail of the fictional inspector from Louise Penny's best-selling mystery novel of the same name.

Aux Anciens Canadiens restaurant, the former home of writer Philippe-Aubert de Gaspé, is a fine spot for lunch, and afternoons fly by while browsing the many independent bookstores of the city, like the massive Librairie Pantoute and the new and used collection of Librairie Nelligan . For the best stock of English language books, La Maison Anglaise et Internationale is the place. Have afternoon tea at the 126-year-old Fairmont Le Château Frontenac , which has inspired many a writer, including Willa Cather when she wrote Shadows on the Rock, a historical novel set in Québec and inspired by her visit there. If you're looking for a retreat to stimulate your own writing, book a stay at Le Monastère des Augustines , an old monastery-turned-hotel that emphasizes quiet reflection through culture and wellness.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Scotland 's capital was the first city to receive the UNESCO City of Literature designation when the program was launched in 2004. Aside from being the birthplace of many famous writers (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, for one), it's also home to the world's oldest circulating library, opened in 1725, as well as the Edinburgh International Book Festival , the largest literary festival on the planet.

Piled deep and massy, close and high; Mine own romantic town.

Must-see sites include the historic National Library of Scotland , with its 7 million books, cozy café, and treasures exhibition; the Scottish Poetry Library , housing an impressive collection inside an award-winning architectural marvel; the Writers' Museum , which honors three Scottish writers (Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Louis Stevenson) by displaying various artifacts and personal effects in a historic 1622 house; and the Scottish Storytelling Centre , a venue that hosts readings, theater and music performances, festivals, and various literature-themed exhibits.

There are countless bookstores, cafés, and pubs (many host readings, salons, and workshops) that are significant to the city's literary landscape, too. A few of the best include Oxford Bar, known as the favorite pub of crime writer Ian Rankin's fictional Edinburgh cop, Inspector Rebus; Elephant House , where J.K. Rowling famously wrote her early books; and the Elvis Shakespeare bookstore. Make time to explore the used bookshops on West Port in the historic Grassmarket area-some taverns there even served the likes of Robert Burns and William Wordsworth. Book a stay at the historic Balmoral Hotel , where Rowling finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in one of its suites.

Iowa City, Iowa

This unassuming Midwestern city is responsible for cultivating some of America's best writing talent. As home to the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, which established the first creative writing degree in the United States in 1936, Iowa City has hosted such acclaimed authors as Flannery O'Connor, John Irving, Ann Patchett, Raymond Carver, and Curtis Sittenfeld. Travelers can visit the Dey House , home of the workshop, peruse its library and archives, and attend a student reading.

I will tell you what I really like: the looks and the feel of this town. The university is right in the middle of it, and the town exists only because of the university. The idea is medieval and exciting and beautiful.

Other literary highlights in the city include the Literary Walk , which features bronze panels along Iowa Avenue devoted to writers with Iowa connections; the Haunted Bookshop , the city's oldest secondhand bookshop with over 50,000 used, rare, and out-of-print books stacked on floor-to-ceiling shelves; the Java House , a local coffee shop chain that hosts readings and art shows; the Iowa Writers' House , which hosts workshops and events; and the famous Prairie Lights independent bookstore, located in the space where a local literary society in the 1930s hosted such poets as Langston Hughes and E. E. Cummings.

It's worth visiting during one of the many festivals the city puts on: Book Festival in October, the Summer Writing Festival in June and July, and Summer of the Arts , which from May through August includes the Iowa Arts Festival, Iowa City Jazz Festival, and Iowa Soul Festival.

Montevideo, Uruguay

At the beginning of the 20th century, Montevideo rose to literary prominence and was nicknamed "the Athens of the Rio de la Plata." Home to renowned authors like Mario Benedetti, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Cristina Peri Rossi, it's also the cradle of gaucho literature. It's common for malls and shopping centers to have at least one bookstore (if not several), and a citywide program brings mobile libraries filled with hundreds of books to city parks and the beach.

On Sundays, the Feria de Tristán Narvaja flea market takes over a long stretch of Tristan Narvaja Street in the Cordón neighborhood. Aside from produce, handicrafts, and antiques, there's a massive area with long tables and crates overflowing with old books and magazines. Some of the best bookstores (many have cafés or restaurants in them) include Las Karamazov , Diomedes Libros , Escaramuza , and Más Puro Verso , which is in an art nouveau building from 1917.

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Ljubljana was named the World Book Capital by UNESCO in 2010 and later designated an official City of Literature in 2015. The Slovenian capital honors poet France Prešeren with a monument in the main square, and the Slovenian Writers Trail connects many author homes. The city also promotes literature and reading in various ways, including a vast library system, literary tours run by the city, festivals like Fabula Festival .

In the small central square of Ljubljana, the statue of the poet stares fixedly at something. If you follow his gaze, you will see, on the other side of the square, the face of a woman carved into the stone of one of the houses.

If you visit the city in spring or summer, be sure to stop by a Library Under the Treetops , which is what it sounds like-a selection of books and chairs set up in parks across the city. Other literary highlights include the Trubar House of Literature , which hosts readings and other events; the oldest publisher and bookstore, Celjska Mohorjeva Družba , operating since 1851; and Pritličje , which is part café, part nightclub, and part comic book shop.

Óbidos, Portugal

This ancient walled city on Portugal's west coast 50 miles north of Lisbon drew international attention in 2012 when it transformed its Gothic church of Santiago into a massive library and a bookshop (now called Livraria de Santiago ), cementing its commitment to literature and its dedication to creative urban renewal. From there, bookstores opened in places like an old fire station, a produce market, and a former wine cellar. Casa José Saramago, the headquarters of Óbidos City of Literature, named after the famous Portuguese author, has information on all the other Cities of Literature, including guidebooks and a library of Saramago's works for sale in different languages.

Óbidos hosts the annual FOLIO festival, an international literary event that brings authors from across Portugal and the world. Bookworms will enjoy a stay at the Literary Man , a literary-themed hotel with more than 65,000 books stacked throughout the 20 rooms and common areas. The dining room and gin bar incorporate books into their designs, and guests can schedule a "bibliotherapy" massage in the ancient wine cellar, which is, of course, lined with books.

Bucheon, South Korea

Located between Seoul and Incheon, the b ustling literary city of Bucheon has been home to many famous writers, including Mok Il-sin, Yang Gui-ja, Jeong Ji-yong, and U.S. author Pearl S. Buck, who wrote two novels set in Korea and worked in 1960s Bucheon with orphans from the Korean War. Since 2006, the city has held a Pearl Buck Festival. Other literary festivals include the Bucheon City Book Festival and the Suju Literary Festival, celebrating the works of beloved native poet Byeon Yeong-ro (his pen name was Suju). It's common for streets, bridges, and memorial parks to be named after authors in Bucheon, and if you wander the city, you'll find that each of the above-mentioned authors and poets have several dedicated to them.

Buck and Ji-yong have special literary trails that trace significant sites throughout the city. Visitors can peruse the Street of Poetry and Flowers, dedicated to the city's poets, and enjoy book cafés like Café 21 Street, Café Kongbang, and Café Dongnae, all located on the street across from the Sangdong Library. The city also has a rich comic and animation culture, with the Korea Manhwa Museum devoted to the genre.

This article was originally published in 2019 and most recently updated on November 27, 2023 with current information. Pat Tompkins contributed to the reporting of this story.

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Events , community news, meet the storytellers coming to the 2023 moth mainstage in portland, by literary arts, literary arts and the moth are bringing a new lineup of storytellers to portland. each moth mainstage show features five tellers who have developed their true stories with help from the moth’s directors. join us on december 12, 2023 at the arlene schnitzer concert hall, and celebrate the ability of stories to honor both the diversity and commonality of human experience, and to satisfy a vital human need for connection., this year’s theme is “how the light gets in.”.

JON GOODE is an Emmy-nominated writer raised in Richmond, Virginia and currently residing in Atlanta, Georgia. Jon’s work has been featured on CNN, HBO, VH1, MTV, TVOne, and BET. His writing earned him the 2006 Promax Gold for the best copyright in North America, and in 2022 he won a gold American Advertising Award, and a Silver Telly. Jon’s debut novel, Mydas , was a #1 new title on Amazon and is available wherever you buy books. Jon is the current host of The Moth, Atlanta. IG @jon_goode

THE STORYTELLERS:

BRITTNEY COOPER , PhD , is an associate professor at Rutgers University, co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective, and author of the New York Times bestseller, Eloquent Rage .

DASHA KELLY HAMILTON is a writer, performance artist, and creative change agent, applying the creative process to facilitate dialogues around human and social wellness. She is the author of two novels, three poetry collections, four spoken word albums, and one collection of personal vignettes. She has taught at colleges, conferences, and classrooms, and curated fellowships for emerging leaders. An Arts Envoy for the US Embassy, Dasha has facilitated community building initiatives in Botswana, Toronto, Mauritius, and Beirut. Dasha is a national Rubinger Community Fellow and a National Laureate Fellow with the American Academy of Poets. She is a former Artist of the Year and Poet Laureate for the City of Milwaukee and the 2020–2022 Poet Laureate for the State of Wisconsin. She has also been a Moth StorySLAM host for the past five years. Her touring production, Makin’ Cake , uniquely engages communities in a forward dialogue on race, class, and equity.

ANNIE KORZEN , TikTok sensation, is the author of The Book of Annie: Humor, Heart, and Chutzpah from an Accidental Influencer .  She was the recurring Doris Klompus on Seinfeld , and has written humorous essays for The New York Times , The Los Angeles Times , and many more. Annie has performed her solo shows on three continents, and she has been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, Tavis Smiley, and Dr. Phil. Learn more about Annie at AnnieKorzen.com or watch her posts at tiktok.com/@akorzen .

MONTE MONTEPARE is a comedian and adventure guide originally from Colorado. He’s been the keynote speaker at The Ouray Ice Festival, is on the cover of The Alaska Packraft Guidebook , and is part owner of Kennicott Wilderness Guides in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska (all real things and places). Monte is a three-time Moth StorySLAM winner, a Moth GrandSLAM Champion and has been featured on The Moth Radio Hour . He lives in a little house on a hill with his partner Jillian, their baby Rocky, and chiweenie Sage.

Rizo aka AMELIA ZIRIN-BROWN is a performance artist, comedienne, singer, composer, and actor. She won the inaugural Time Out London and Soho Theatre Award and a London Cabaret Award. She is also a Grammy winner for a 2010 collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma on the holiday album Songs of Joy and Peace . A recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, her original pieces have shown at the Public Theater in New York (she was aresident artist for three years at Joe’s Pub), the Leicester Square Theatre in London, and the Sydney Festival. Rizo created the six-piece house band and was Mistress of Ceremonies for the popular NYC supper club The Darby, performing alongside musical luminaries such as Prince, John Mayer, LeAnn Rimes, and Bruno Mars. She co-created the web series and composed the theme song VIDS for the Fuse network and E! Entertainment. Along with Yo-Yo Ma, she has recorded with Moby, Reggie Watts, and CocoRosie. Most recently she and her songs can be seen in the indie film Potato Dreams of America which was nominated at South by Soutwest, Seattle International Film Festival, and Deauville Film Festival. Her debut album, Violet , and her second album, Indigo , are both available at Rizo.love . Find her on Instagram @rizo.love .

THE MUSICIAN:

KEVIN KUNKEL joined the Oregon Symphony in 2016 upon completing a fellowship with the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida. During the summertime, he serves as principal cello of the Des Moines Metro Opera and also performs at the Lakes Area Music Festival in Brainerd, Minnesota. Kevin has participated in numerous festivals such as the New York String Orchestra Seminar, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, the Lake George Music Festival, Britt Music & Arts Festival, the Pacific Music Festival, the Lucerne Festival Academy, and the Verbier Festival. Devoted to both the symphonic and operatic worlds, he has served as principal cello under visionary conductors, including Michael Tilson Thomas, Valery Gergiev, Christopher Hogwood, Stéphane Denève, Christoph Eschenbach, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Iván Fischer, Zubin Mehta, and Charles Dutoit. His musical travels have taken him to Carnegie Hall, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Großes Festspielhaus at the Salzburg Festival, Hagia Irene in Istanbul, Palacio de Carlos V in the Alhambra, and the Suntory Hall in Tokyo. In 2016, his performance of Ibert’s Concerto for Cello and Winds at the Spoleto Festival USA was featured on American Public Media’s Performance Today . As a chamber musician, Kevin has performed alongside inspiring artists, including members of Eighth Blackbird, the Silk Road Ensemble, Yo-Yo Ma, Christian Tetzlaff, Anne-Marie McDermott, Albrecht Mayer, Orion Weiss, Andy Akiho, Julia Bullock, and the most cherished musical colleagues across the world. A native of the Chicago area, Kevin started his cello studies at age ten0. He received his bachelor of Music and performance diploma degrees from Indiana University studying under Eric Kim with influential mentorship from Jorja Fleezanis.

Tickets are selling fast for The Moth: Mainstage in Portland , on Tuesday, December 12, 2023 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Don’t miss out! Get tickets now for an inspiring and enlightening evening of live storytelling.

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‘The Vulnerables’ Review: Birds of a Literary Feather

In sigrid nunez’s novel, the pandemic results in a human-avian rooming situation, and it’s not the parrot that proves hardest to please..

Heller McAlpin

Nov. 24, 2023 10:14 am ET

In Sigrid Nunez’s 2018 novel, “The Friend,” a woman mourns the suicide of a close friend and fellow writer whose bereft dog, a slobbering, arthritic Great Dane, she reluctantly agrees to adopt. The book, which won a National Book Award, is a moving and witty meditation on loss, consolation, the art of fiction and the many shapes that love and friendship can assume.

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The Vulnerables

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Ms. Nunez followed “The Friend” in 2020 with “What Are You Going Through,” another exploration of how empathy and a newfound, unexpectedly deep attachment to another living being—this time a dying friend whom the narrator agrees to assist in her final days—can bring joy but also leave you open to loss and grief.

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Russian Books for Children One cannot imagine Russian literature without the riches of children's literature, which is rooted in the depths of national folk literature. Researchers assume that Russian folk literature and children's literature existed much earlier, but only later written materials have come down to us.

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synonyms for literary

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Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.

How to use literary in a sentence

Steve Erickson is the author of 10 novels including Shadowbahn, Zeroville, These Dreams of You and Our Ecstatic Days—as well as two works of literary non-fiction about politics and culture—that have been translated into 11 languages.

There, he determined to relaunch his stalled literary career.

We could also use a literary culture that nurtures more writers the way it has Duchovny.

Her debut poetry volume is expected in September, her first picture book is on the way, and she has several other literary projects cooking.

Much as I value serious literary fiction, I find reading it to be exceptionally draining.

From this attitude he draws a singular comic and literary power.

Lacey Noonan's A Gronking to Remember makes 50 Shades of Grey look like Madame Bovary in terms of its literary sophistication.

The goal is to create a literary anatomy of the last century—or, to be precise, from 1900 to 2014.

To reclaim it, he had to move beyond established conventions about how a literary career should be conducted.

A new book from Mallory Ortberg imagines what literary legends including King Lear and Jane Eyre would have texted.

Louis Petit de Bachaumon died; a native of Paris, known as the author of several literary works.

It was strenuously opposed by all possible means, governmental, legislative, and literary .

Samuel Badcock, an English divine and writer, died; admired as a pulpit orator and a man of literary talent.

She was a woman of great intellectual endowment, with highly cultivated literary tastes.

Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, died; an English statesman and literary character.

Choose the synonym for classic

Words Related To literary

• intelligent
• accomplished
• appreciative
• blue-stocking
• enlightened
• intellectual
• knowledgeable
• sophisticated
• understanding
• well-informed
• acquainted with
• professional
• well-taught
• well-versed
• doctrinaire
• formalistic
• hairsplitting
• nit-picking
• ostentatious
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• philosophic
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A.S. Byatt, Scholar Who Found Literary Fame With Fiction, Dies at 87

One of Britain’s most ambitious and intellectual novelists, she won the Booker Prize with “Possession,” her 1990 tale of illicit love spanning two centuries.

By Rebecca Chace

A.S. Byatt, one of the most ambitious writers of her generation, whose dazzling 1990 novel, “Possession,” won the Booker Prize and brought her international fame as a novelist and unapologetic intellectual, died on Thursday at her home in London. She was 87.

Her longtime publisher, Chatto & Windus, announced the death in a statement on Friday. It did not cite a cause of death.

Ms. Byatt was a brilliant critic and scholar who broke the academic mold by publishing 11 novels and six collections of short stories. “I am not an academic who happens to have written a novel,” she bristled in an interview with The New York Times Magazine in 1991. “I am a novelist who happens to be quite good academically.”

Ms. Byatt’s intellectual passion was evident in “Possession.” Subtitled “A Romance,” it is a scholarly detective story nesting one tale of illicit love inside another: One couple lives in the Victorian age, the other in the late 20th century. The mystery is set in motion when a young scholar discovers something extraordinary at the London Library in 1985: old love letters tucked inside a rare edition of Victorian poetry.

Investigating this love affair compels the two modern-day scholars who track them down to fall in love as well. Along the way, Ms. Byatt mocks the foibles of the academic world while effortlessly writing, in the voices of her fictional protagonists, her own Victorian poetry.

“Possession” became an unexpected best seller and was made into a feature film in 2002, directed by Neil LaBute and starring Gwyneth Paltrow. A novella from her book “Angels and Insects” (1992) had already been made into a 1995 film by Philip Haas. Both film adaptations increased Ms. Byatt’s visibility as an author who widened the scope of contemporary British fiction.

Ms. Byatt built her literary reputation slowly and steadily with two early novels, “The Shadow of the Sun” (1964) and “The Game” (1967), followed by a four-volume series known as the Frederica Potter quartet.

Like Ms. Byatt, Frederica and her siblings come of age in mid-20th-century England, a period when even highly educated women were expected to stop working if they married. Ms. Byatt’s own greatest terror was being trapped by domesticity.

“I had this image,” Ms. Byatt told The Guardian in 2009, “of coming out from under and seeing the light for a bit and then being shut in a kitchen, which I think happened to many women of my generation.”

Ms. Byatt’s early career was overshadowed by her younger sister, the writer Margaret Drabble , whose debut novel, “A Summer Bird Cage” (1963), became an immediate best seller. When she was first published, Ms. Byatt told The Paris Review , she was more afraid of the constant comparison to her better-known sister than of bad reviews. While her early fiction was generally received respectfully, she said that some dismissed it as “another novel by somebody rather like Margaret Drabble.”

The relationship between these highly competitive literary sisters was always strained. They did not read each other’s work or see each other often, fueling endless gossip for the literary press. Both sisters maintained that their rivalry was overstated, though Ms. Byatt may have undercut that argument by dryly telling the BBC in 1991 that she and Ms. Drabble had “always liked each other on the bottom line.”

But in later years they had a harder time containing themselves, and tension occasionally spilled out into public view.

When Ms. Drabble, who survives her sister, published a semi-autobiographical book, “The Pattern in the Carpet” (2009), Ms. Byatt told The Telegraph that she’d rather people didn’t read someone else’s version of her mother. Ms. Drabble fired back that her sister was so territorial, she had been offended when Ms. Drabble included a family tea set in one of her novels. By 2011, Ms. Drabble was telling The Telegraph that their feud was beyond repair.

Ms. Byatt was born Antonia Susan Drabble on Aug. 24, 1936, in Sheffield, England. Her father, John F. Drabble, a barrister and judge, published two novels himself. Her mother, Kathleen (Bloor) Drabble, was a teacher and homemaker.

Antonia was the oldest child; Margaret was born three years later, and two more siblings followed. Both parents had gone to the University of Cambridge and expected all four of their children to do the same, which they did.

But their mother overtly favored Margaret, which contributed to the competition between the two older girls.

Ms. Byatt described herself as having been an unhappy child who had suffered from severe asthma and spent a great deal of time in bed, where reading became her escape from a tense and angry household.

Ms. Byatt and Ms. Drabble were both sent to the Mount School, a Quaker boarding school in York where their mother taught, and both went on to Newnham College, the women’s college at Cambridge that their mother had attended. Ms. Byatt earned a “first” (highest honors) degree in English in 1957, followed by a year of graduate work at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. She continued her doctoral studies at Somerville College Oxford, where she was discouraged from writing fiction by her Ph.D. supervisor, who told her , Ms. Byatt recalled: “My dear, every young girl with a first-class degree expects to be able to write a good novel. None of them can.”

When she left Oxford to marry Ian Byatt, an economist, in 1959, her scholarly grant was terminated; men in similar circumstances did not lose their grants.

To her horror, Ms. Byatt found herself relegated to the role of faculty wife at the age of 25. But she persevered, writing with what she described as fierce desperation while caring for two young children.

The marriage ended in 1969. She went on to marry Peter John Duffy, an investment analyst, and had two more children.

Ms. Byatt continued to publish novels and critical studies, but then tragedy struck, in the early 1970s, when her only son, Charles, who had just turned 11, was struck and killed by a drunken driver. Ms. Byatt had just accepted her first teaching position, at University College London.

“I think what saved me was the students,” she said of her grief in an interview with The New York Times. “They were in another world; I had to change gear.”

Ms. Byatt addressed the loss of her child in a short story, “The July Ghost,” about a grieving mother, and in a poem, “Dead Boys,” in which she meditates on how a child remains with the mother constantly, even in death. It ends with the lines “My cheek was damp with his warmth / And five days later cold.”

She said the experience changed her writing. “I suddenly thought, Why the hell not have happy endings?” she recalled to The Paris Review. “Everybody knows they’re artificial. Why not have this pleasure, as one has the pleasure of rhyme, as one has the pleasure of color?”

Ms. Byatt wrote and edited many works of literary criticism, including two books on the British writer Iris Murdoch and one about the relationship of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. She also edited, with Nicholas Warren, a book of essays about George Eliot. She was a senior lecturer in English at University College from 1972 to 1983.

While some of her writing, particularly her academic writing, was criticized as so dense as to be impenetrable, she was included on The Times of London’s 2008 list of the “ 50 Greatest British Authors Since 1945 .”

Ms. Byatt was made a dame of the British Empire in 1999 for her contributions to contemporary English literature, though some of her most popular works were yet to come.

Her novel “The Children’s Book” (2009), based on the life of the popular children’s book author E. Nesbit, incorporates fairy tales into social commentary on British utopian movements of the early 20th century. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2009 and received the James Tait Black Prize in 2010. “A Stone Woman,” a widely anthologized story that was included in Ms. Byatt’s collection “Little Black Book of Stories” (2003), explores themes of grief and aging through a woman’s metamorphosis into stone following the death of her mother.

Her most recent book was the career-spanning collection “Medusa’s Ankles: Selected Stories,” published in 2021.

In addition to Ms. Drabble, Ms. Byatt’s survivors include her husband; three daughters, Antonia Byatt, Isabel Pinner and Miranda Duffy; a younger sister, Helen Langdon , an art historian and author; and a brother, Richard Drabble , a barrister.

By the time she was in her early 80s, Ms. Byatt felt she had accomplished a lot by simply becoming a writer.

“I think most of my life I’ve felt very lucky, because I expected not to be able to write books,” she said in a 2016 interview . “And I never really wanted to do anything else.”

Ashley Shannon Wu contributed reporting.

An earlier version of a picture caption with this obituary, using information from Getty Images, misidentified the Cambridge University campus where a 1991 photo of Ms. Byatt was taken. It is King’s College, not Newnham College.

An earlier version of this obituary misspelled the surname of the author on whose life Ms. Byatt’s novel “The Children’s Book” was based. She was E. Nesbit, not Nesbitt.

An earlier version of this obituary misstated the year Ms. Byatt’s collection “Little Black Book of Stories” was published. It was 2003, not 2018.

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‘A veritable manifesto for Modern art’: Gauguin's last literary manuscript in private hands arrives at the Courtauld

The 28-page work sees the artist praising the impressionists and discussing ‘haunting visions’.

Paul Gauguin, self-portrait (1903)

Courtesy of Kunstmuseum Basel

The Courtauld Gallery has bought the last literary manuscript by Paul Gauguin remaining in private hands. Written in 1902 on the remote Marquesan island of Hiva Oa in French Polynesia, it is bitter denunciation of critics who do not understand Modern art. It was submitted for publication in the radical journal Mercure de France , but rejected by its editors.

Gauguin entitled his French text Racontars de Rapin , which is difficult to translate. “Racontars” is probably best translated as Tales . “Rapin” is more complicated, since its traditional meaning was an apprentice or amateur artist. But in around 1900 it was also used differently, to describe a Bohemian or avant-garde artist. Gauguin, who enjoyed ambiguity, may well have intended his title to have a dual message. In writing about art was he posing as an innocent amateur or a knowledgeable avant-garde commentator? The Courtauld has just opted for Tales of an Apprentice Painter .

First and last pages of Gauguin’s Racontars de Rapin (Tales) , September 1902

Photo: Christie's

The 28-page Tales manuscript was bought at Christie’s in Paris on 21 October, when it went for €65,520. The auctioneers describe the document as “a veritable manifesto for Modern art, artistic freedom and the independence of painters from the limits imposed by critics and academics”.

The manuscript arrived in London this week and was immediately shown to The Art Newspaper . It has survived remarkably well, although the paper is fragile and needs careful handling.

In Tales , Gauguin writes: “The artist has to look to the future, whereas the so-called educated critic is only educated about the past… the painter is a slave neither to the past nor to the present.”

Gauguin's Racontars de Rapin

Photo: The Art Newspaper

Gauguin praises the Impressionists, who had arisen in the 1870s, saying they began as wolves, “since they had no collars”. He adds that they then went on to become an established group of painters, “with all the slavery it entails… it's one more dogma.”

When it came to naming individual artists, Gauguin praised Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who “draws well”. Camille Pissarro is “one of my masters” and much admired: “No matter how far away the haystack may be, over there on the hillside, Pissarro knows how to take the trouble to walk around it and examine it.” Gauguin even singled out the Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones, “a sad Englishman, suffering from melancholia”, and the Anglo-American Whistler.

Forty one other artists whom Gauguin admired are simply listed. They include Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Paul Signac, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Pierre Bonnard. Writing from his Pacific island home, far away from Paris, he added that there would also be “many others, arisen since I left, and whom I do not know.”

Towards the end of Tales Gauguin writes about an extraordinary occasion just after sunset, when he was sitting on a rock near his Marquesan hut, smoking. There suddenly appeared in the trees “a completely naked body, skinny, withered, completely covered in tattoos which made it look like a toad”. The figure who approached turned out to be a woman. She “examined me with her hand”, first on his face and eventually on his “virile member”.

The following day Gauguin was apparently told that the apparition was “a blind madwoman who was living in the bush, who ate the remains of swine”. For two months, the encounter remained “a haunting vision” for Gauguin, which he claimed impacted on his paintings: “Everything around me took on a barbaric, savage, ferocious aspect”. In Gauguin’s writings, it becomes difficult to distinguish fact from fantasy, dream from nightmare. His comments seem offensive today, although Gauguin regarded himself as a “savage”.

In September 1902 Gauguin sent Tales to André Fontainas, a Belgian Symbolist friend in Paris. In his covering letter, he asked Fontainas to send “this little manuscript, written in haste” to the Mercure de France : “What I have written has no literary pretensions, but it expressed a deep conviction which I am anxious to make known.”

Fontainas’ reply has been lost, but he reported back that the editors would not be publishing the manuscript. Tales may have been rejected by the Mercure de France because the journal frequently published art criticism, a form of writing so despised by Gauguin. The manuscript is sometimes obscure and difficult to follow, so it would have required considerable editing to make it suitable for publication. And readers might not have taken kindly to Gauguin’s account of his twilight encounter.

Gauguin responded to Fontainas in February 1903: “Your friendly letter does not surprise me as regards the Mercure ’s refusal, I had an idea that this would happen.” Three months later Gauguin was dead, from a heart attack and possibly syphilis.

Fontainas kept the manuscript, perhaps until his death in 1948. It was later acquired by an unidentified American owner, who sold it in 1984. It was then bought by Sam Josefowitz, the distinguished Swiss collector of works by Gauguin and his circle in Brittany. The manuscript was then sold by his heirs last month.

Tales has ended up in an appropriate home, since in 2020 the Courtauld Gallery acquired another rare Gauguin manuscript, Avant et Après (Before and After). This was completed in February 1903, just five months after Tales . The Courtauld, which has three key paintings ( The Haystacks , 1889; Te Rerioa , 1897 and Nevermore , 1897) is therefore set to become an important centre for research on the artist.

Ketty Gottardo, the Courtauld’s curator of drawings, says that this latest acquisition strengthens the gallery’s ability “to foster the study of this significant, and equally controversial, artist.” The institution also owns the artist's book-length manuscript Avant et Après (Before and After) .

The Tales manuscript will be digitised for the Courtauld’s website early in the new year. For conservation reasons, it will only be possible to display it very occasionally, although it will hopefully be available for study by appointment in the print room. An English translation of the text was published in 2016 by David Zwirner Books, under the title Ramblings of a Wannabe Painter .