David Alm

Everyone I know loved Wild Things the best

by David Alm May 9, 2012

When I was a kid, Where the Wild Things Are was my favorite book. It was also my mother’s favorite book to read to my brother and me. My niece Anya, now three, has loved it since she was old enough to understand narratives. Last I checked, it was her favorite book, too. Every time [...]

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Millennials insist they read newspapers

by David Alm May 8, 2012

NPR ran a story last week suggesting that contrary to popular belief, millennials — those early 20-somethings who can send a text faster than you can speed-dial your best friend from a cordless phone — actually read newspapers. Not “newspapers” in digital format; newspapers — on paper. Of course, the number isn’t high enough to [...]

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A final tribute, in my words, to Hillman Curtis

by David Alm April 25, 2012

Here is a truth about ghostwriting that I never knew until now: You can write about practically anything in the first-person — except death. One week ago today, an old friend died after fighting cancer for three and a half years. He was just 51, had a wife, two young children, and countless friends scattered [...]

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The book vs. the app — a tired, boring debate

by David Alm April 24, 2012

I’ve come around. No longer do I wish to disparage apps and technology in favor of books and reading by kerosene. To be fair, I’ve never done the latter, but I do own a lot of books and I don’t plan on getting rid of them. One thing I don’t own, still, is an iPad [...]

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Henry Miller, the Caribbean, and me

by David Alm April 5, 2012

It’s been 70 years since Henry Miller wrote his scathing critique of American life, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare. After more than a decade in Paris, Miller returned home to the United States and traveled across the American south towards California. He was largely appalled by what he saw. But you could argue that Miller’s life as an [...]

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Your thoughts on Adrienne Rich, please

by David Alm March 29, 2012

I first learned about Adrienne Rich, who died on Tuesday at her home in Santa Cruz, CA, at the age of 82, in college almost 20 years ago. I was 18, and many of my professors adored Rich. They taught entire courses about her, or at least included her poems on their syllabi, and by [...]

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Whistleblowers, More Whistleblowers!

by David Alm March 16, 2012

When Greg Smith resigned from his position as an executive director in the London office of Goldman Sachs on Wednesday, most people didn’t know who he was. He was a midlevel investment banker at one of the largest investment banks in the world, with more than 30,000 employees. Apparently, in the I-banking world, “executive directors” [...]

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It’s a digital world. What should we let go?

by David Alm March 5, 2012

If it can be digitized, it will. And once it’s digitized, what good are copies? Look at Google Books, which has already scanned some 15 million books and intends to digitize every volume in the world by the end of the decade — 130 million unique texts. Once a book’s on Google, you can chuck [...]

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When books begin to annoy

by David Alm February 23, 2012

Something strange is happening to me. When I read books now, I find myself getting annoyed with them about halfway through. This is an entirely unscientific observation, anecdotal at best, and sporadic in actual occurrences. But it’s happened a few notable times in the past year, and I’ve come to a conclusion that seems to [...]

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What does a writing teacher look like?

by David Alm February 10, 2012

When I was in high school, the only two writing teachers I had were guys who taught so they could coach sports. Nothing against athletics, but these guys were dimwits. Their hearts were clearly in the gymnasium, not the classroom or at an austere table someplace with a small desk lamp, polishing prose and contemplating [...]

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The audacity of Udacity

by David Alm January 30, 2012

Much of education is aesthetic: The architecture, the “look” of the student body, the general vibe of a university. Such considerations may be superficial, but they aren’t trite. The feel of a school has a huge influence on one’s experience of it. There’s something about strolling through a centuries-old campus that compels you to excellence. [...]

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PhD programs, meet the 21st Century

by David Alm January 16, 2012

At the annual MLA convention in Seattle last week, humanities professors and university presidents gathered to discuss something they know all too well: dissertations. It’s safe to say that everyone there had written one, holed up for years in the process of jumping through that final, enormous hoop towards the ultimate prize: a PhD. But [...]

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When academia becomes a novelty act

by David Alm January 10, 2012

This news is sort of last-week, but it’s been on my mind. Charlie Trotter, the famed Chicago restaurateur who helped ween that city off its diet of hot dogs and milkshakes, introducing farm-fresh vegetables and elegant presentations at his posh restaurant on West Armitage Street, has decided to shut it down this August. His reason, [...]

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A new year for Contrary

by David Alm January 3, 2012

Last winter, when the founding editor of Contrary magazine, Jeff McMahon, asked me to anchor the site’s blog, I was flattered, of course, but also a bit intimidated. The magazine had already established itself as a literary gem in a field that can seem either overcrowded or woefully empty depending on how you look at [...]

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Getting paid in links

by David Alm December 28, 2011

You can call it narcissistic, but sometimes I Google myself. Who doesn’t? If you’ve done anything in the public eye — writing, especially — you’re bound to show up in unexpected places on the Web. When I Google my own name, it’s simply to find those places. And each time I do this, I find [...]

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