Respondeo Blog

Writing and Painting

Writing and Painting

Writing Challenges It was a proto-blogger, the sports columnist Red Smith, who was asked if it was hard to turn out a column a day and responded “Writing is easy. You just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.” On the other hand, the science fiction writer and...

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Why Write?

Why Write?

One day my memory, working in the unpredictable way it does, presented me with the first time I had encountered someone who gave that reason for writing. I was eighteen and traveling through Greece and the Middle East…

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Martha Franks at AWP

Martha Franks at AWP

In March, Martha Franks appeared at the AWP conference where she spoke on a panel called “Being Human: How Literature Helps.”

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US-China Review of Books Without Borders

US-China Review of Books Without Borders

In the Chinese school system, students are silent. They read, they listen to the teacher, they memorize information, and they take tests. It was a total surprise to them when their new American teacher, Martha Franks, requested that they read Homer’s Iliad …

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Travels in Africa

A Travelogue by Fred Abramowitz

“shot through with vivid portraits”