belles lettres
“Aurora Borealis,” a stroll with Harry Kollatz, Jr., through Nature, Disaster, Memory.

“Aurora Borealis,” a stroll with Harry Kollatz, Jr., through Nature, Disaster, Memory.

“These days, the natural world around us is magnificent as a Baroque painting adorned by blooms and birdsong …” “The summer of 1914 would have been memorable for us even without the doom which it spread over the European earth,” author Stefan Zweig recalled in his book The World of Yesterday. “Throughout the days and nights...
Online Exclusive: Parsing “The Big Sleep." Three writer-editors annotate the classic noir novel.

Online Exclusive: Parsing “The Big Sleep.” Three writer-editors annotate the classic noir novel.

Raymond Chandler’s inaugural novel gets scholarly treatment in a book packed with facts, photos, and insights into the text and the times. “We all had great love for Chandler’s novels. And we knew the world did too.” Some years ago, three intrepid friends who met at a bookstore —Owen Hill, Pamela Jackson, and Anthony Dean Rizzuto — undertook a...
From Our Pages: "An Affair of Youth" ... In search of flappers, belles, and the first grave of the Fitzgeralds, by Bryant Mangum.

From Our Pages: “An Affair of Youth” … In search of flappers, belles, and the first grave of the Fitzgeralds, by Bryant Mangum.

In 1970, three avid young Fitzgerald scholars took a joy ride in search of Scott and Zelda’s first resting-place. One result is the only known published photo of that original gravesite, which appeared first in Broad Street‘s “Maps & Legends” issue … Finally Rick struck a match by a gravestone and yelled, “They’re here!” … Things...
Truth Teller Spotlight: Bryant Mangum, belle-lettrist, scholar, storyteller.

Truth Teller Spotlight: Bryant Mangum, belle-lettrist, scholar, storyteller.

“I often wonder if I am violating the sanctity of the hearts of the writers I teach and write about when my research carries me into the details of their private lives …”   Bryant Mangum sees himself mostly as a scholar — and he is in fact an eminent expert on F. Scott Fitzgerald in particular and the...
What writers will do to keep paper and pen together ...

What writers will do to keep paper and pen together …

This month, we celebrate the publication of  From Pantyhose to Spandex: Writers on the Job Redux.  The book is a veritable cornucopia of odd true tales about zany jobs that writers do to keep the ink flowing. And it happens to feature some of Broad Street‘s authors.  The editors, Thomas E. Kennedy (“Prix Fixe,” from our...