John Steinbeck’s Six Tips for the Aspiring Writer and His Nobel Prize Speech

in Literature, Writing | February 27th, 2012

Today is the 110th birth­day of writer John Stein­beck, whose great nov­el of the 1930s, The Grapes of Wrath, gives an elo­quent and sym­pa­thet­ic voice to the dis­pos­sessed. In 1962, Stein­beck was award­ed the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture “for his real­is­tic and imag­i­na­tive writ­ings, com­bin­ing as they do sym­pa­thet­ic humour and keen social per­cep­tion.” You can watch him deliv­er his Nobel speech above.

And for insights into how Stein­beck reached that pin­na­cle, you can read a col­lec­tion of his obser­va­tions on the art of fic­tion from the Fall, 1975 edi­tion of The Paris Review, includ­ing six writ­ing tips jot­ted down in a let­ter to a friend the same year he won the Nobel Prize. “The fol­low­ing,” Stein­beck writes, “are some of the things I have had to do to keep from going nuts.”

1. Aban­don the idea that you are ever going to fin­ish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets fin­ished, you are always sur­prised.

2. Write freely and as rapid­ly as pos­si­ble and throw the whole thing on paper. Nev­er cor­rect or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usu­al­ly found to be an excuse for not going on. It also inter­feres with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of uncon­scious asso­ci­a­tion with the mate­r­i­al.

3. For­get your gen­er­al­ized audi­ence. In the first place, the name­less, face­less audi­ence will scare you to death and in the sec­ond place, unlike the the­ater, it does­n’t exist. In writ­ing, your audi­ence is one sin­gle read­er. I have found that some­times it helps to pick out one person–a real per­son you know, or an imag­ined per­son and write to that one.

4. If a scene or a sec­tion gets the bet­ter of you and you still think you want it–bypass it and go on. When you have fin­ished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the rea­son it gave trou­ble is because it did­n’t belong there.

5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dear­er than the rest. It will usu­al­ly be found that it is out of draw­ing.

6. If you are using dialogue–say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

“As you write,” Stein­beck says, “trust the dis­con­nec­tions and the gaps. If you have writ­ten what your eye first saw and you are stopped, see again. See some­thing else. Take a leap to anoth­er image. Don’t require of your­self that you under­stand the con­nec­tion. Some of the most bril­liant things that hap­pen in fic­tion occur when the writer allows what seems to be a dis­con­nect­ed image to lead him or her away from the line that was being tak­en.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

Writ­ing Tips by Hen­ry Miller, Elmore Leonard, Mar­garet Atwood, Neil Gaiman & George Orwell

Remem­ber­ing Ernest Hem­ing­way, Fifty Years After His Death

36 Free Oscar Winning Films Available on the Web

in Film | February 26th, 2012

How about some hors d’oeu­vres meant to accom­pa­ny the main course, the 2014 Acad­e­my Awards? We scout­ed around the web and found 36 Oscar-win­ning (or nom­i­nat­ed) films from pre­vi­ous years. The list includes many short films, but also some long ones, like Sergei Bon­darchuk’s epic ver­sion of War & Peace. Sit back, enjoy, and let us know if we’re miss­ing any oth­er Oscar win­ners…

Find more films in our col­lec­tion of 700 Free Movies Online.

• A Herb Alpert & the Tijua­na Brass Dou­ble Fea­ture — Free — A pre­cur­sor to mod­ern music videos, this Oscar-win­ning ani­mat­ed film by John & Faith Hub­ley is set to the music of two pop­u­lar songs record­ed by Herb Alpert. (1966)
• A Sto­ry of Heal­ing — Free – Won Acad­e­my Award for best Doc­u­men­tary Short Sub­ject. Fol­lows a team of vol­un­teers in Viet­nam. (1997)
  
• Churchill’s Island — Free – WWII pro­pa­gan­da film chron­i­cling the defense of Great Britain. Won the very first Acad­e­my Award for Doc­u­men­tary Short Sub­ject. (1941)
• Der Fuehrer’s Face – Free – Disney’s anti-Nazi pro­pa­gan­da movie fea­tur­ing Don­ald Duck. Won the Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film. (1942)
• Every Child – Free – Eugene Fedorenko’s ani­mat­ed short about an unwant­ed baby cared for by a home­less men. Won 1979 Oscar for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film.
  
• Father and Daugh­ter – Free – Michaël Dudok De Wit’s heart­break­ing short won the 2000 Acad­e­my Award for Ani­mat­ed Short Film. (2000)
  
• Fla­men­co at 5:15 – Free – Oscar-win­ning short film about a fla­men­co dance class giv­en to senior stu­dents. (1983)
• Franz Kafka’s It’s a Won­der­ful Life - Free — Direct­ed by Peter Capal­di, the Oscar-win­ning short film shows Kaf­ka, on Christ­mas Eve, strug­gling to come up with the open­ing line for his most famous work, The Meta­mor­pho­sis. (1993)
• Glass - Free — Direct­ed by Bert Haanstra, this short doc­u­men­tary about the glass indus­try won the Acad­e­my Award for Doc­u­men­tary Short Sub­ject in 1959. (1958)
• Granny O’Grimm’s Sleep­ing Beau­ty- Free – 6 minute ani­mat­ed black com­e­dy. Short­list­ed for the 2010 Oscar for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film. (2008)
• Logo­ra­ma – Free – François Alaux and Herve de Crecy’s 17 minute film, Logo­ra­ma, won the Oscar for Short Film (Ani­mat­ed) in 2009.
• If You Love This Plan­et – Free – Oscar-win­ning short film on the need for nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment. (1982)
• I’ll Find a Way – Free – Oscar-win­ning doc­u­men­tary presents Nadia, a 9‑year-old girl with spina bifi­da. (1977)
• Is It Right to Be Always Right? — Free — Nar­rat­ed by Orson Welles, this Oscar-win­ning film direct­ed by Lee Mishkin is a para­ble that com­ments on divi­sions in the Unit­ed States. (1970)
• J’attendrai le suiv­ant – Free – A French film nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award for the Best Short Film in 2002.
• Madame Tut­li-Put­li – Free – Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed ani­mat­ed short film by Mon­tre­al film­mak­ers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczer­bows­ki. (2010)
• Neigh­bors – Free – Nor­man McLaren ani­mates live actors with tech­niques nor­mal­ly used to put drawings/puppets into motion. Oscar win­ner. (1952)
• Ryan – Free – Oscar-win­ning ani­mat­ed short from Chris Lan­dreth based on the life of Ryan Larkin, the influ­en­tial Cana­di­an ani­ma­tor. (2004)
• Spe­cial Deliv­ery – Free – Hilar­i­ous sto­ry won 1978 Oscar for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film.
• Super­man – Free – Max Fleischer’s short ani­mat­ed movie. Nom­i­nat­ed for the 1942 Acad­e­my Award for Best Short Sub­ject: Car­toons. (1941)
• The Cathe­dral — Free — “The Cathe­dral” is the title of a sci fi short sto­ry by Jacek Dukaj. It was turned into a short ani­mat­ed movie by Tomasz Bag­ińs­ki and nom­i­nat­ed in 2002 for the Acad­e­my Award for Ani­mat­ed Short Film. (2002)
• The Crit­ic - Free — Mel Brooks 1963 ani­ma­tion fea­tures an old Yid­dish watch­ing abstract ani­ma­tions. Hilar­i­ous film won Oscar. (1963)
• The Dan­ish Poet — Free — Ani­mat­ed short film writ­ten, direct­ed, and ani­mat­ed by Torill Kove and nar­rat­ed by Liv Ull­mann, won the Acad­e­my Award in 2006.
• The Dot and the Line - Free — Chuck Jones’ ani­mat­ed film cel­e­brates geom­e­try and hard work. (1965)
• The Fan­tas­tic Fly­ing Books of Mr. Mor­ris Less­more — Free — Oscar-win­ning film by Moon­bot Stu­dios pays homage to a bygone era when ele­gant­ly print­ed books inhab­it­ed our world. (2011)
• The Hole – Free — A 15-minute ani­mat­ed film by John Hub­ley and Faith Hub­ley that won an Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film in 1962. Fea­tures the voice of Dizzy Gille­spie. (1962)
• The Last Farm – Free – Short Ice­landic film nom­i­nat­ed for Oscar in 2006.
• The Lunch Date – Free – Adam Davidson’s com­men­tary on race in Amer­i­ca. The short film won an Oscar and a prize at Cannes. (1989)
• The Man with the The Gold­en Arm – Free — Direct­ed by Otto Pre­minger. Star­ring Frank Sina­tra and Kim Novak. Nom­i­nat­ed for three Acad­e­my Awards. (1955)
  
• The Old Man and the Sea – Free – Alek­san­dr Petrov won the Acad­e­my Award for Short Film for this film that fol­lows the plot of Ernest Hemingway’s clas­sic 1952 novel­la. Made of 29,000 images paint­ed on glass. (1999)
  
• The Red Bal­loon — Free — A short fan­ta­sy film direct­ed by French film­mak­er Albert Lam­or­isse. Won Acad­e­my Award for Best Orig­i­nal Screen­play and a Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val in 1956.
• The Sand Cas­tle – Free – Short ani­mat­ed film about the sand­man and the crea­tures he sculpts out of sand. 1977 Oscar-win­ner for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film.
• Tin Toy – Free – John Las­seter cre­at­ed this Oscar-win­ning short film in 1988 at Pixar. It was the begin­ning of the company’s tran­si­tion into being a pre­mier ani­ma­tion stu­dio.
• Toot, Whis­tle, Plunk and Boom – Free – Disney’s music edu­ca­tion film. First car­toon released in widescreen Cin­e­maS­cope. Won 1954 Acad­e­my Award for Best Short Sub­ject (Car­toons). (1953)
  
• Walk­ing – Free – Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed ani­mat­ed short film by Ryan Larkin. (1969)
• War & Peace — Free — Sovi­et direc­tor Sergei Bon­darchuk turns Tolstoy’s great nov­el into what Roger Ebert calls “the defin­i­tive epic of all time.” Won Acad­e­my Award – Best For­eign Lan­guage Film in 1969. (1965–1967)
• Why Man Cre­ates - Free - Saul Bass’ Oscar-win­ning ani­ma­tion on the nature of cre­ativ­i­ty. (1963)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

200 Free Doc­u­men­taries Online

21 Free Hitch­cock Movies Online

Tarkovsky Films Now Free Online

The 10 Great­est Films of All Time Accord­ing to 846 Film Crit­ics

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore: Film for Book Lovers Wins Oscar

in Animation, Books, Film | February 26th, 2012

Remem­ber The Fan­tas­tic Fly­ing Books of Mr. Mor­ris Less­more? The short film we fea­tured a month ago? Well, it won an Oscar tonight for best ani­mat­ed short film, and we’re bring­ing it back for one more show­ing, plus adding it to our list of Oscar films avail­able online.

The Fan­tas­tic Fly­ing Books of Mr. Mor­ris Less­more offers a mod­ern trib­ute to an old world. Made with an ani­ma­tion style that blends stop motion with com­put­er ani­ma­tion and tra­di­tion­al hand-draw­ing, the silent film pays homage to a bygone era when ele­gant­ly print­ed books inhab­it­ed our world. The 15-minute short is the first made by Moon­bot Stu­dios, a fledg­ling ani­ma­tion shop in Shreve­port, Louisiana. For their efforts, Moon­bot’s founders (William Joyce, Bran­don Old­en­burg and Lamp­ton Enochs) received an Oscar-nom­i­na­tion this week (Best Ani­mat­ed Short), putting them in com­pe­ti­tion with two oth­er films fea­tured on Open Cul­ture: Sun­day and Wild Life.

We rec­om­mend watch­ing The Fan­tas­tic Fly­ing Books of Mr. Mor­ris Less­more on YouTube, or down­load­ing it for free in HD from iTunes. iPad own­ers will also want to con­sid­er buy­ing the relat­ed app ($4.99) that turns the film into an inter­ac­tive nar­ra­tive expe­ri­ence.

For more ani­mat­ed bib­lio­phil­ia, don’t miss:

Spike Jonze Presents a Stop Motion Film for Bib­lio­philes

Books Savored in Stop Motion Film

Going West: A Stop Motion Nov­el

Books Come to Life in Clas­sic Car­toons from 1930s and 1940s

Inspirations: A Short Film Celebrating the Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher

in Art, Film, Math | February 24th, 2012

Almost two years ago, Span­ish film­mak­er Cristóbal Vila shot an exquis­ite lit­tle film, Nature by Num­bers, which cap­tured the ways in which math­e­mat­i­cal con­cepts (Fibonac­ci Sequence, Gold­en Num­ber, etc.) reveal them­selves in nature. And the short then clocked a good 2.1 mil­lion views on YouTube alone.

This week, Vila returns with a new film called Inspi­ra­tions. In this case, the inspi­ra­tion is M.C. Esch­er (1898–1972), the Dutch artist who explored a wide range of math­e­mat­i­cal ideas with his wood­cuts, lith­o­graphs, and mez­zot­ints. Although Esch­er had no for­mal train­ing in math­e­mat­ics beyond sec­ondary school, many math­e­mati­cians count­ed them­selves as admir­ers of his work. (Vis­it this online gallery to get bet­ter acquaint­ed with Escher’s art, and be sure to click on the thumb­nails to enlarge the images). As Vila explains, Inspi­ra­tions tries to imag­ine Escher’s work­place, “what things would sur­round an artist like him, so deeply inter­est­ed in sci­ence in gen­er­al and math­e­mat­ics in par­tic­u­lar.” It’s a three min­utes of unbri­dled imag­i­na­tion.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

“The Periodic Table Table” — All The Elements in Hand-Carved Wood

in Science | February 24th, 2012

In 2011, Theo Gray (co-founder of Wol­fram Research, Pop­u­lar Sci­ence colum­nist, and ele­ment col­lec­tor) won the ACS Grady Stack Award for Inter­pret­ing Chem­istry for the Pub­lic. And here you can see why. In this clip, Gray intro­duces you to his DIY mas­ter­piece — the world’s first “peri­od­ic table table.” Yes, we’re talk­ing about a hand-carved wood­en table that brings to life the Peri­od­ic Table, and lets you play with the ele­ments. The project began back in 2002, and now, a decade lat­er, Gray puts it on dis­play in a video pro­duced by the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Chem­istry on YouTube: “Peri­od­ic Table of Videos” Wins SPORE Prize

Harvard Thinks Big 2012: 8 All-Star Professors. 8 Big Ideas.

in Harvard, TED Talks | February 23rd, 2012

Ear­li­er this month, Har­vard stu­dents made their way to the Sanders The­atre for the 2012 edi­tion of Har­vard Thinks Big. It’s a TED-style event which gets pitched like this: “8 all-star pro­fes­sors. 8 big ideas. All ten min­utes each.” You get the gist.

This year’s ver­sion had as much sub­stance, though per­haps not quite the same siz­zle, as the 2011 ver­sion, which fea­tured talks by Steven Pinker, Lawrence Lessig, Daniel Gilbert and Elaine Scar­ry. Above, we have one talk from the lat­est Har­vard Thinks Big. It fea­tures Daniel Lieber­man, the renowned biol­o­gist (per­haps you know his work on bare­foot run­ning?) talk­ing about how evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gy explains why obe­si­ty is on the rise in the Unit­ed States.

Oth­er speak­ers at the event includ­ed Doug Melton, Eleanor Duck­worth, Nicholas Chris­takis, Kaia Stern, Don­hee Ham, Stephen Green­blatt, and Jill Lep­ore. The lec­tures can be watched via YouTube (fol­low the pre­vi­ous links) or via iTunes. Regret­tably the talks by Green­blatt, Ham and Lep­ore haven’t made it to the web, at least not yet. When they do, we’ll men­tion it on our Twit­ter stream, where we post lots of oth­er cul­tur­al good­ies.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Har­vard Presents Free Cours­es with the Open Learn­ing Ini­tia­tive

Har­vard Thinks Green: Big Ideas from 6 All-Star Envi­ron­ment Profs

Why is the U.S. F’ed Up? 8 Lec­tures from Occu­py Har­vard Teach-In Pro­vide Answers

The Birth of the Moon: How Did It Get There in the First Place?

in Astronomy, Science, Video - Science | February 23rd, 2012

The Moon is a mys­tery. For all its familiarity–the reg­u­lar­i­ty of its phas­es, the fact that every­where on Earth it looks the same–the Moon has always been an enig­ma, a lumi­nous ques­tion mark rolling across the night sky.

In this new video from Cos­mic Jour­neys, we learn about some of the lat­est sci­en­tif­ic research into the struc­ture and his­to­ry of the Moon. In par­tic­u­lar, we learn the lat­est ideas on what is per­haps the great­est of lunar mys­ter­ies: the ques­tion of how the Moon got there in the first place.

The lead­ing can­di­date for an answer is the Giant Impact Hypoth­e­sis, which posits that some­time in the ear­ly stage of the Solar System–about four and a half bil­lion years ago–a large pro­to-Earth col­lid­ed with a Mars-sized body named “Theia,” caus­ing a huge cloud of mate­r­i­al from both bod­ies to fly out into space. Some of the mate­r­i­al remained in the Earth­’s orbit and coa­lesced into the Moon. It’s a fas­ci­nat­ing hypoth­e­sis. To see more videos from the same series, vis­it the Cos­mic Jour­neys chan­nel on YouTube, or the Spac­eRip blog.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Moon Up Close, in HD

A Year of the Moon in 2.5 Min­utes

The Far Side of Moon: A Rare Glimpse from NASA

125 Great Sci­ence Videos

Watch Battleship Potemkin and Other Free Sergei Eisenstein Films

in Film | February 23rd, 2012

As a car­less cinephile, I’ve spent hours upon hours lis­ten­ing to film pod­casts while rid­ing my bike or the train. Bat­tle­ship Pre­ten­sion, host­ed by knowl­edge­able but still knowl­edge-hun­gry young crit­ics Tyler Smith and David Bax, has long held top pri­or­i­ty on these rides — and even if the title’s ref­er­ent doesn’t flood your mind with mem­o­ries of artis­tic awe, you prob­a­bly get the pun. But if you want to go deep­er and talk about how film edit­ing went from grunt work to art form, you have lit­tle choice but to talk about Bat­tle­ship Potemkin (1925) and its direc­tor, Sergei Eisen­stein. A Russ­ian dou­ble-threat of film­mak­er and film the­o­rist in the 1920s through the late 1940s, Eisen­stein pio­neered many now-essen­tial edit­ing tech­niques, fig­ur­ing out how images could be arranged to serve not just a film’s sto­ry but its rhythm, its tone, and even its themes.

Like cin­e­ma itself, Eisen­stein came from the the­ater. Unlike most of his con­tem­po­raries, he made great strides in drag­ging cin­e­ma out of the the­ater behind him, cast­ing off staid sto­ry­telling habits in favor of the vast pos­si­bil­i­ties of the then-new medi­um, most of which remain unchart­ed even today. Tasked by his gov­ern­ment with pro­duc­ing what came down to rev­o­lu­tion­ary pro­pa­gan­da, Eisen­stein couldn’t push the the­mat­ic enve­lope very far. Even so, today’s film­mak­ers look­ing for ways to advance their form, or today’s film­go­ers eager to learn more about how movies work, would do well to look at what Eisen­stein man­aged to do 85 years ago, and how aes­thet­i­cal­ly exhil­a­rat­ing it all remains.

This you can do from the com­fort of your com­put­er by brows­ing Open Culture’s col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online, where you’ll find links to Eisen­stein pic­tures view­able at the click of the mouse, includ­ing the sweep­ing Alexan­der Nevsky, the doomed ¡Que viva Méx­i­co!, and of course, the icon­ic Bat­tle­ship Potemkin (above). Watch a few, and you’ll see why Bat­tle­ship Pre­ten­sion’s lis­ten­ers vot­ed Eisen­stein into the top hun­dred direc­tors of all time. Smith and Bax called on yours tru­ly to write his blurb on the list, but don’t take my word for the filmmaker’s impor­tance; his movies, whether you catch them in a grand revival screen­ing or on your web brows­er right now, show you every­thing you need to know.

Com­plete list of free Eisen­stein films: Alexan­der Nevsky, Bat­tle­ship Potemkin, Octo­ber: Ten Days that Shook the World, Old and New, ¡Que viva Méx­i­co!, Romance Sen­ti­men­tale, andStrike.

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Princeton v. Yale, 1903: The Oldest College Football Game on Film

in Film, History | February 23rd, 2012

You can thank Thomas Edi­son and his motion pic­ture cam­era for many things: Bike Tricks Caught on Film in 1899; Footage of Mark Twain from 1909; The World’s First (and Slight­ly Scan­dalous) Hand-Tint­ed Motion Pic­ture (1895); The First Kiss in Cin­e­ma, 1896; and now this — footage of the 1903 Prince­ton v. Yale foot­ball game. The two teams were unde­feat­ed, and 50,000 spec­ta­tors were on hand. The video starts with the play­ers tak­ing the field (Prince­ton first, Yale sec­ond) and some panoram­ic views of Yale’s sta­di­um. Then (around the 2:00 mark) we get to the high­lights of the game.

The clip above is appar­ent­ly the old­est col­le­giate foot­ball footage sur­viv­ing today. And, in case you’re keep­ing score, Prince­ton won the game 11–6.

But if you’re count­ing the num­ber of Free Cours­es pro­vid­ed by the two uni­ver­si­ties, we have the score at 38–1, with Yale com­ing out way on top.

via Retro­naut and the Reel Mudd

30 Free Essays & Stories by David Foster Wallace on the Web

in e-books, Literature | February 22nd, 2012

Image by Steve Rhodes, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

We start­ed the week expect­ing to pub­lish one David Fos­ter Wal­lace post. Then, because of the 50th birth­day cel­e­bra­tion, it turned into two. And now three. We spent some time track­ing down free DFW sto­ries and essays avail­able on the web, and they’re all now list­ed in our col­lec­tion, 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices. But we did­n’t want them to escape your atten­tion. So here they are — 23 pieces pub­lished by David Fos­ter Wal­lace between 1989 and 2011, most­ly in major U.S. pub­li­ca­tions like The New York­er, Harper’s, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review. Enjoy, and don’t miss our oth­er col­lec­tions of free writ­ings by Philip K. Dick and Neil Gaiman.

• “9/11: The View From the Mid­west” (Rolling Stone, Octo­ber 25, 2001)
• “All That” (New York­er, Decem­ber 14, 2009)
• “An Inter­val” (New York­er, Jan­u­ary 30, 1995)
• “Asset” (New York­er, Jan­u­ary 30, 1995)
• “Back­bone” An Excerpt from The Pale King (New York­er, March 7, 2011)
• “Big Red Son” from Con­sid­er the Lob­ster & Oth­er Essays
• “Brief Inter­views with Hideous Men” (The Paris Review, Fall 1997)
• “Con­sid­er the Lob­ster” (Gourmet, August 2004)
• “David Lynch Keeps His Head” (Pre­miere, 1996)
• “Every­thing is Green” (Harpers, Sep­tem­ber 1989)
• “E Unibus Plu­ram: Tele­vi­sion and U.S. Fic­tion” (The Review of Con­tem­po­rary Fic­tion, June 22, 1993)
• “Fed­er­er as Reli­gious Expe­ri­ence” (New York Times, August 20, 2006)
• “Good Peo­ple” (New York­er, Feb­ru­ary 5, 2007)
• “Host” (The Atlantic, April 2005)
• “Incar­na­tions of Burned Chil­dren” (Esquire, April 21, 2009)
• “Laugh­ing with Kaf­ka” (Harper’s, Jan­u­ary 1998)
• “Lit­tle Expres­sion­less Ani­mals” (The Paris Review, Spring 1988)
• “On Life and Work” (Keny­on Col­lege Com­mence­ment address, 2005)
• “Order and Flux in Northamp­ton” (Con­junc­tions, 1991)
• “Rab­bit Res­ur­rect­ed” (Harper’s, August 1992)
• “Sev­er­al Birds” (New York­er, June 17, 1994)
• “Ship­ping Out: On the (near­ly lethal) com­forts of a lux­u­ry cruise” (Harper’s, Jan­u­ary 1996)
• “Ten­nis, trigonom­e­try, tor­na­does A Mid­west­ern boy­hood”  (Harper’s, Decem­ber 1991)
• “Tense Present: Democ­ra­cy, Eng­lish, and the wars over usage” (Harper’s, April 2001)
• “The Awak­en­ing of My Inter­est in Annu­lar Sys­tems” (Harper’s, Sep­tem­ber 1993)
• “The Com­pli­ance Branch” (Harper’s, Feb­ru­ary 2008)
• “The Depressed Per­son” (Harper’s, Jan­u­ary 1998)
• “The String The­o­ry” (Esquire, July 1996)
• “The Weasel, Twelve Mon­keys And The Shrub” (Rolling Stone, April 2000)
• “Tick­et to the Fair” (Harper’s, July 1994)
• “Wig­gle Room” (New York­er, March 9, 2009)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Philip K. Dick: Down­load 13 Great Sci­ence Fic­tion Sto­ries

Neil Gaiman’s Free Short Sto­ries

Read 17 Short Sto­ries From Nobel Prize-Win­ning Writer Alice Munro Free Online

10 Free Sto­ries by George Saun­ders, Author of Tenth of Decem­ber, “The Best Book You’ll Read This Year”