Does “Death of an Author” spell the Death of Authors?
By Leah Eichler, James Ledbetter, the executive editor at the Observer, whom I had the pleasure of working with several years ago at Reuters, revealed a cryptic piece of gossip in his Facebook feed earlier this week. He said that a large corporation that makes oodles of money publishing horoscopes to paying readers has quietly […]
Gordon Lightfoot’s Music Was The Soundtrack to My Life
By Bruce Farrell Rosen, He had opened the show that night of June 9, 1978 at the Santa Barbara County Bowl with the words to Summertime Dream. It was that time between finishing up the senior year of college at U.C. Santa Barbara and graduation ceremony just a few days away. The early summer sun […]
What Would Jane Austen Do?
In today’s column, Jane tackles the food obsessed and the case of the sperm donor brother. Have a question for Jane? Email it to editor@esotericamag.com. Dear Jane, One of my long-time friends is annoyingly obsessed with food. Every time we eat out together, she’s analyzing each dish, getting abnormally excited by an unusual flavor or […]
Billionaires Vs. Broadcasters
By Leah Eichler, Years ago, I ran the Reuters Online Newsroom, a global operation that determined what news we produced would find its way somewhere on the Internet. It was a 24-hour news operation that followed the sun, which meant I would regularly visit our overnight crew covering Asia, or the early morning crew covering […]
Who Gets to Tell the Story of the Holocaust?
By Leah Eichler I wrote a rather dismissive book review for a The Globe and Mail in Canada in 2002 on a novella called I was Hitler’s Cat by N. J. Dodic. The book appears to be out of print and my own copy disappeared many years ago, but I’ve often thought of that book, […]
Holmes is Where the Heart Is
By Robert Basler, “My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.” The librarian knew me well. I was 11 years old and was no stranger to the dusty bookshelves at School 91, in Indianapolis. I loved biographies, science fiction and boyhood adventures, to be sure, […]
A Love Letter to All Women (and Men)
By Rita Jane Gabbett This is a cautionary tale for all the women I love, which, as it turns out, includes all women. It might be worth consideration for you guys too. When you are having an angiogram (cardiac catheter procedure), they don’t knock you out all the way. This is because they might have […]
Can an Artist be Happy? Arizona O’Neill has Some Thoughts
(Caption: ARIZONA: Do you think authors are responsible for exposing the dark side of society? HEATHER: I don’t think any subject is dark to a writer. We are drawn to what excites us and is rich with possibility. I find darkness beautiful and vulnerable and full of pathos and violence and sweetness.) By Jean Marc […]
Shock & Awe, Excerpt from Junkyard Girl
On November 22, Carlyn Montes De Oca appeared on Esoterica’s podcast to discuss her memoir, Junkyard Girl. In it, she relates how, at 57, she took a DNA test on a whim, and discovered that she was not only adopted, but her entire family knew. Here’s an excerpt: “SOMETHING BIG HAS HAPPENED in our family […]
French Actor Clementi’s Prison Memoir “Not a Warning, but a Wailing”
By Jean Marc Ah-Sen Pierre Clėmenti, the enigmatic French actor and director whose roles in Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, Luis Buñuel’s Belle De Jour, and Phillipe Garrel’s The Virgin’s Bed made him one of the most recognizable talents in the world of art house cinema, was arrested in 1972 on suspicion of drug possession charges […]