“Every novel is—at the beginning—the same opening of a door onto a completely unknown space.”

Who knows what goes on in their heads? said Jocasta. They were well into the second carafe of wine. Not me, I’ve stopped even trying. It used to be women that were so mysterious, remember? Well, not any more, now it’s men.

How quickly we’re skimming through time,
leaving behind us
a trail of muffin crumbs
and wet towels and hotel soaps
like white stones in the forest.
But something’s eroded them:
we can’t trace them back
to that meadow where we began so eagerly
with the berry-filled cups, and the parents
who had not yet abandoned us
to take their chances in the ground.

The sore trees cast their leaves
too early. Each twig pinching
shut like a jabbed clam.
Soon there will be a hot gauze of snow

Margaret Atwood on the one book she recommends without fail to aspiring writers and painters and musicians.

Margaret Atwood remembers the late Ray Bradbury, who saw his writing as a way of living on after his death.