Remember when you were young and everyone was always telling you that you could be anything - you're a star! - and every creative piece you made was touted as the most brilliant work ever? Remember when you stopped hearing that? Or more importantly, why you stopped hearing that? Could it be because it kinda sucked? Some people never stopped to listen to that rubbish - they kept at it because that's how you get better, right? more ›

Our sacrifices to the Muses have worked: Margaret Atwood, the high priestess of literary wit, is back and in fine form, putting the mistake that was Oryx and Crake behind her. Atwood's latest "novel," The Penelopiad, one of the inaugural stories in the Canongate myth series, is a retelling of the Greek classic, The Odyssey, from Penelope’s point of view. According to Greek myth, Penelope was the cousin of the infamous Helen, she who launched... more ›