Laura Heffernan – författare

The Teaching Archive shows us a series of major literary thinkers in a place we seldom remember them inhabiting: the classroom. Rachel Sagner Buurma and Laura Heffernan open up “the teaching archive”—the syllabuses, course descriptions, lecture notes, and class assignments—of critics and scholars including T. S. Eliot, Caroline Spurgeon, I. A. Richards, Edith Rickert, J. Saunders Redding, Edmund Wilson, Cleanth Brooks, Josephine Miles, and Simon J. Ortiz. This new history of English rewrites what we know about the discipline by showing how students helped write foundational works of literary criticism and how English classes at community colleges and HBCUs pioneered the reading methods and expanded canons that came only belatedly to the Ivy League. It reminds us that research and teaching, which institutions often imagine as separate, have always been intertwined in practice. In a contemporary moment of humanities defunding, the casualization of teaching, and the privatization of pedagogy, The Teaching Archive offers a more accurate view of the work we have done in the past and must continue to do in the future.

The Teaching Archive shows us a series of major literary thinkers in a place we seldom remember them inhabiting: the classroom. Rachel Sagner Buurma and Laura Heffernan open up “the teaching archive”—the syllabuses, course descriptions, lecture notes, and class assignments—of critics and scholars including T. S. Eliot, Caroline Spurgeon, I. A. Richards, Edith Rickert, J. Saunders Redding, Edmund Wilson, Cleanth Brooks, Josephine Miles, and Simon J. Ortiz. This new history of English rewrites what we know about the discipline by showing how students helped write foundational works of literary criticism and how English classes at community colleges and HBCUs pioneered the reading methods and expanded canons that came only belatedly to the Ivy League. It reminds us that research and teaching, which institutions often imagine as separate, have always been intertwined in practice. In a contemporary moment of humanities defunding, the casualization of teaching, and the privatization of pedagogy, The Teaching Archive offers a more accurate view of the work we have done in the past and must continue to do in the future.

This new edition of Contemporaries and Snobs, a landmark collection of essays by Laura Riding, offers a counter-history of high modernist poetics.   Laura Riding’s Contemporaries and Snobs (1928) was the first volume of essays to engage critically with high modernist poetics from the position of the outsider. For readers today, it offers a compelling account—by turns personal, by turns historical—of how the institutionalization of modernism denuded experimental poetry. Most importantly, Contemporaries and Snobs offers a counter-history of the idiosyncratic, of what the institution of modernism left (and leaves) behind. With Gertrude Stein as its figurehead, the book champions the noncanonical, the “barbaric,” and the undertheorized. Riding’s nuanced defense of a poetics of the person in Contemporaries and Snobs represents a forgotten but essential first attempt to identify and foster what is now a well-defined poetic lineage that leads from Stein to the contemporary experimental avant-garde. In these essays, Riding takes her readers on a remarkably thorough tour through the critical scene of the 1920s. Among other influential treatises, she considers T. S. Eliot’s The Sacred Wood and his editorial essays in The Criterion, Allen Tate’s “Poetry and the Absolute,” John Crowe Ransom’s essays on the modernist poet, Edgell Rickword’s essays in The Calendar of Modern Letters, and Herbert Read’s posthumous publication of T. E. Hulme’s essays. All of this criticism, Riding notes, gave modern poets a sheen of seriousness and professionalism, but was it good for poetry? Her decisive answer is “no.” This new edition includes an introduction by Laura Heffernan and Jane Malcolm that makes legible the many connections between Contemporaries and Snobs and the critical debates and poetic experiments of the 1920s, as well as explanatory notes, a chronological bibliography of Riding’s work, and an index of proper names.

In this irresistible rom com for fans of Christina Lauren and Alisha Rai, travel blogger Gwen Williams' pact to never mix love with gaming is put in serious jeopardy by her frustratingly handsome competition, Cody McKay. Will it be winner take all, or will Gwen be left with her heart on the table? Charming, funny, and full of surprises,Shes Got Gamegave me all the feels, following Gwen on a romantic journey as she learns to let down her guard and play her hand at the game of love. Kristin Rockaway, author ofHow to Hack a Heartbreak Travel blogger Gwen Williams is living the dreamcompeting in the annual American Board Game Championship. Shes up against some stiff competition, namely legendary gamer and four-time champ Cody McKay. The seriously buff hottie and shameless flirt is going all-out to seduce her. Thats when Gwen lays her cards on the table: She never,evermixes gaming with romance . . . until resisting Cody becomes a losing proposition. As Gwen gives in to temptation, everythings in play for a major heartache. With the rounds heating up and players eliminated, she knows shes gambling a lot more than a seat at the final table in Vegas. But Codys kisses promise more than a fleeting romance. If she plays her cards right, Gwen just might walk off with the championshipandthe man of her dreams. Praise forAmericas Next Reality StarSmart, witty, and really freaking good . . . a fun read that has you cheering from the first paragraph through the last page. Kerry Lonsdale,Wall Street Journalbestselling authorReality TV fans, this is your book! Laura Heffernan captures all the drama and over-the-top craziness in this fun and flirty romance.Amy E. Reichert, author ofLove, Luck, and Lemon PieAmericas Next Reality Staris one sweet, sexy brain-candy read! You wont be sorry you indulged. Leah Marie Brown

RISK EVERYTHING . . . Holly has taken herself out of the dating game since breaking up with her cheating, thieving ex. She barely notices Marc, who comes into the game store every week, hoping to get her attention. Her friends insist it’s time to take on a new role, to leave Quiet Holly behind and embrace her inner flirt. And on paper, Marc’s great: cute, funny, and a hardcore gamer just like Holly is. Then there’s Nathan. He’s everything twenty-eight-year-old Holly wants…except he’s also her friend’s father. Absolutely off-limits. But as she and Nathan playtest a new legacy game together, they’re growing closer. The game is complex and intriguing, and there’s no way to know how choices will pan out. What seems like a good idea could lead to disaster…or sweet victory. But in gaming, as in love, sometimes you have to roll the dice and take your chance . . .

LOVE’S ALL ABOUT TIMING . . . At twenty-eight, Shannon has yet to fall in love. Which is fine, since she’d rather spend her evenings creating games than swiping right or going on awkward blind dates. Right now though, she has two little problems. First, she’s stuck for a new game idea. Second, the only candidate in her roommate search is Tyler, the gaming buddy who’s long had an unrequited crush on her. It should be awkward. But when Tyler moves in, the situation doesn’t go at all the way Shannon expected. Between helping her deal with coworkers and fixing the bugs in her latest game, Tyler’s proving to be damn near perfect. Except for the fact that he’s falling for someone else. . . Maybe Shannon has already forfeited her turn. Maybe she’s playing for nothing but heartache. But the best games have endings you can never predict . . .