Jennifer Howard

I hit an unexpected and unwelcome writing hiatus this past month when my netbook stopped working. I want to say that the netbook died or that it decided to quit on me, but that would be giving it a life and a sense of being that it doesn’t deserve, much as I loved it. (And I did love it.) And even saying that a machine doesn’t deserve something anthropomorphizes it. It’s hard to resist the pull to see one’s writing implements as collaborators. Writing gets very tangled up for me with the mechanics by which it’s accomplished. There’s a practical… Read more...

My smartphone can do many things. It can send and receive emails. It lets me keep track of my calendar appointments and keep up with the news. It’s a portal to my social networks. It will take pictures and play me music. It even makes phone calls. All of this is useful and good. (I do wish at times it were a little smarter, especially when it tries to correct my diction. There’s an often hilarious poetry in the words it decides to autofill for me.) The other day, though, I picked up a paperback—it happened to be Evelyn Waugh’s… Read more...