Billie Pritchett's Web Presence
Wednesday, August 6, 2025
The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Friday, August 1, 2025
Donald Barthelme on Writing
Writer Donald Barthelme in his essay "Not-Knowing" says the writer not knowing what he or she is on about when he or she starts writing is crucial to the process. The process of writing is built around honed intuition, and for the writer, it all might as well be magic.
In this same essay on craft, Barthelme worries about many other things besides. One is the shrinking audience for literature. Another is the competition with TV and film. And still another is the possibility that the contemporary writer might have finally arrived at the point where there is not much more to do by way of art. Most of Barthelme's essay focuses on this latter issue.
Friday, July 4, 2025
Freedom and the American Revolution
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Julian Barnes on Writing
As a writer of essays and autobiographical fiction, I owe it to myself to familiarize myself with the major works from my birthyear forward. Let's begin with the leadoff piece of this volume written by Julian Barnes titled "On Writer Worship."
Barnes claims to own a piece of fence that belonged to the house of writer W. Somerset Maugham (pictured left). Barnes also writes of a pilgrimage he took to the site of what was once the home (now destroyed) of Gustave Flaubert, where he came across a stuffed parrot that once sat on Flaubert's writing desk.
Sunday, June 1, 2025
Tocqueville: Democracy in America
In 1831, a young French aristocrat named Alexis de Tocqueville traveled to the United States to make a study of the new country's prison system. While treading the fresh soil, he turned his attention to the character of the country itself. He became enamored by the democratic revolution the nation had undergone since its liberation from England in the war of 1776 and its establishment of its constitution in 1787.