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Articles by Bryan VanDyke
Actually, It’s Ok to Steal Your Ideas. Sort Of… (Or: Learning to Love My Literary Influences)
Last month I found myself on a Zoom call with the members of a book club who’d read my debut novel; truly, a bucket list moment in my writing life. Near the end of the call, someone asked the question I suspect every fiction writer gets at some point: Where do you get ideas from? Article continues after advertisement Simple, I said: I steal them. I was joking. Sort of. Creative types have been delivering versions of this quip for at least a hundred years.
A Bag Full of Trouble: How I Found My Way Into My Debut Novel
Some time ago–a decade at least, but it feels longer–a literary agent read a manuscript that I’d written and told me that she loved it, loved my style, but the book felt too calculated, too much like a math problem. It didn’t lack heart per se, she said, but it felt too much like a clocked thing, too neat. Article continues after advertisement I carried this criticism around with me for a long time.
Misinformation Is Exhausting. Listening Helps
September 27, 2024 at 10:44 AM Credit - Getty Images A recent study out of Columbia University concluded that most Americans can tell the difference between fake and real news. According to researchers, the key predictor is an individual’s exposure to quality news sources overall; to defeat misinformation all we have to do, they suggest, is raise media literacy across the board. A simple prescription for a major social problem, right?
Nothing’s Ever Lost: Can AI Help Us Remember Our Departed Loved Ones?
A few years ago, my mom gave me print-outs of emails we traded in the 1990s, when I was a freshman in college. She was clearing out her closet, I realize now, and redistributing keepsakes she’d gathered over a lifetime. The emails from me are terse, needy, sad; a young person searching for a path. Emails from her evoke the mother I remember: orderly, chatty, eager to get things done.
Rise of the Ghost Machines
I was halfway through writing the first draft of a novel about artificial intelligence when I heard that Christie’s planned to auction a portrait produced by AI. This was before DALL-E, before GPT3, before Gemini, Grok, and the latest chatbots. At the time, the idea of an algorithm producing art was plausible, but ridiculous. In theory, it was possible to auction off the bizarre renderings of generative adversarial networks, but who would want to pay for it?
Rise Of The Ghost Machines - The Millions
I was halfway through writing the first draft of a novel about artificial intelligence when I heard that Christie’s planned to auction a portrait produced by AI. This was before DALL-E, before GPT3, before Gemini, Grok, and the latest chatbots. At the time, the idea of an algorithm producing art was plausible, but ridiculous. In theory, it was possible to auction off the bizarre renderings of generative adversarial networks, but who would want to pay for it?
The Path Is No Path: On Not Becoming a Poet
In my second year of college I applied for a spot in a creative writing program. If I got in, I could graduate in two years with a writing major. If I didn’t, well, I needed a new major. I fussed over the application for months. Attended info sessions, met with the program director, revised my portfolio of poems so often that one professor finally said, Bryan, relax. Let the poems speak.
The Path Is No Path: On Not Becoming a Poet
In my second year of college I applied for a spot in a creative writing program. If I got in, I could graduate in two years with a writing major. If I didn’t, well, I needed a new major. I fussed over the application for months. Attended info sessions, met with the program director, revised my portfolio of poems so often that one professor finally said, Bryan, relax. Let the poems speak.
The Haunted Writing Life of John Polidori
1817, Sept. 20—A young doctor driving through a leafy park in Norfolk loses control of his horse-drawn gig and falls from the carriage either just before or after it strikes a tree. His injury is grievous, and although he’s carried to a nearby manor, he is not expected to live. Yet he does not die. He languishes in bed for weeks, gradually learning to walk again, to speak again, to think straight.
The Haunted Writing Life of John Polidori
1817, Sept. 20—A young doctor driving through a leafy park in Norfolk loses control of his horse-drawn gig and falls from the carriage either just before or after it strikes a tree. His injury is grievous, and although he’s carried to a nearby manor, he is not expected to live. Yet he does not die. He languishes in bed for weeks, gradually learning to walk again, to speak again, to think straight.
To All the Novels I Never Published
To All the Novels I Never Published I’ve had a manuscript locked in a drawer for three and a half years now. It’s a coming-of-age novel about a boy who believes a supernatural force has seized the minds of the adults in his life. He and his best friend confront and defeat the supernatural force, but victory comes at the cost of their innocence—the classic trade-off. I don’t know if it’s my best work, but it’s my favorite. Perhaps inevitably, I’m terrified of ever trying to sell it to someone.
To All the Novels I Never Published
I’ve had a manuscript locked in a drawer for three and a half years now. It’s a coming-of-age novel about a boy who believes a supernatural force has seized the minds of the adults in his life. He and his best friend confront and defeat the supernatural force, but victory comes at the cost of their innocence—the classic trade-off. I don’t know if it’s my best work, but it’s my favorite. Perhaps inevitably, I’m terrified of ever trying to sell it to someone. I’m not new to this writing jig.
What Kind of Angel: On Percy Shelley
Two hundred years ago this summer, the maddeningly reckless poet Percy Bysshe Shelley rode a double masted sailboat straight into the maw of a storm off the coast of Italy. He drowned, as did the two other men on board when the ship went down 10 miles from shore in the Gulf of La Spezia. This was the definitive end to Percy’s life, but, as often happens in literature, only the beginning of his story.
The Original Fire: On Mary Shelley and Creativity
The Original Fire: On Mary Shelley and Creativity I was seated on the library floor when I opened a copy of Mary Shelley’s journal and discovered the voice that would haunt me for weeks, months, and years to come. I was researching the summer Mary and Percy Shelley spent on the shores of Lake Geneva because I wanted to write an essay about, well, it doesn’t really matter. I forgot everything else after I read this entry: Friday, Aug.
Shelf Life: On the Stories Our Books Tell About Us
The Great American Novel is the great superlative of American life. We've had our poets, composers, philosophers, and painters, too, but no medium matches the spirit of our country like the novel does. The novel is grand, ambitious, limitless in its imagined possibility. It strains towards the idea that all of life may be captured in a story, just as we strain through history to make self-evident truths real on earth. So, when you set out to debate "the great American novel," the stakes are high.
Origin Stories: On the Value of Comics
I was six years old when I pulled a reprint of "Amazing Spider-Man No. 1" from the rack at Michigan News, a rumpled newsstand at the heart of the city where I grew up. I still have the comic, dated April 1982; it's tattered and almost worthless, but as a talisman it can transport me across time. Suddenly, I'm there. I'm shorter than the counter. The man at the register rings the sale. The world is vast and I'm unsure of how it works, but this comic is mine, and that's enough.
The Kindest Cut: On Rejection
At a party many years ago, I jokingly told another guest that I’d do my best to remember his name after I published a book to great acclaim. I meant to be funny and disarming, but I bungled the delivery. I came off like a jerk. This other guest was a writer, too, and an equally self-serious one. Predictably, he took offense. He pointed his beer bottle at me. I’ll remember you too, he said, when I win my Pulitzer. I did not shrug off his rejoinder. How could I?
The Kindest Cut: On Rejection
The Kindest Cut: On Rejection At a party many years ago, I jokingly told another guest that I’d do my best to remember his name after I published a book to great acclaim. I meant to be funny and disarming, but I bungled the delivery. I came off like a jerk. This other guest was a writer, too, and an equally self-serious one. Predictably, he took offense. He pointed his beer bottle at me. I’ll remember you too, he said, when I win my Pulitzer. I did not shrug off his rejoinder. How could I?
Silent All These Years: On Annie Dillard
1. Some years ago, I attended a conference featuring boldface names and their thoughts on the topic of the essay as art. At 39, I'd written three failed novels, and essays felt like the last form left to me. I was desperate for tips, tricks, and whatever writerly chum they throw to audiences at events like these.
The Case for 'War and Peace' and Rereading
I was 26 and planning for a wedding when Colin Powell made his speech at the United Nations about the supposedly incontrovertible need to invade Iraq. The most famous pitch for war in our time. I can't be certain, but I believe this historical moment was what led me soon after to visit Shakespeare & Co and purchase a paperback of War and Peace, that infamously long, infamously antiwar Russian novel. Now seems as good a time as any, I said to anyone who'd listen.
For the Relief of Unbearable Bookstores
1. “We’re closing in on a deal,” my agent told me on the phone. “I’m just turning him upside-down now and shaking him for loose change.” It was midday on a Monday in early August of the year 2000. The Nasdaq, rested from its breather in the spring, was sprinting back up over 4,000 toward its March peak. Vice President Gore, demolishing the Bush son’s early lead, was pulling even in the polls.
Extinguishing the Self: On Robert Stone
1. Until the pandemic forced us into hiatus, I curated a reading series for emerging writers in New York City. For 13 years, we met monthly at KGB Bar, a literary venue in the East Village. The bar was rarely full, but it was always a chore to get people to quiet down; we encouraged readers to invite friends, family, and other writers. On the best nights, the place was full of convivial anticipation, like we were throwing a big, bold send-off before these promising writers lit out to new territory.
The Things My Books Carried
John Cheever may be the most misunderstood and miscategorized important American author of the 20th century. On three separate recent occasions, and many more times over recent years, I have read articles/interviews that group him stylistically with Raymond Carver.
The Ghost in My Hands: On Reading Digital Books
During my last two years of college in Chicago, I rode downtown by commuter train a few times each week. The trip took about 40 minutes, and I always brought a book to pass the time. I read most of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain on the tracks between the Loop and the Davis Street stop. I paged through The Satanic Verses that way too. These were strange book choices, but I was a strange reader. I never felt like I had read the right books. Everyone else seemed to have read everything.
God in the Trash Fire: Thomas Traherne Endures
"To burn a book is to bring light to the world." - Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810) "Every book burned enlightens the world." - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Circumstances surrounding the occasional rediscovery of the poetry of the 17th-century divine Thomas Traherne are as something out of one of his strange lyrics.
Who Is Greek? - The Millions
1. Last week, Greeks and people of Greek descent around the world commemorated the events of October 28, 1940, a day not remembered as a revolution or victory, but a day of saying no-literally. Called "Oxi Day," the holiday memorializes the fateful moment when Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas curtly said "No" to Mussolini's plans to invade Greece. In saying no, Metaxas sent his country to war with Fascist Italy, whose army underestimated the tiny but furious Greek military.
On Writing Challenges
To satisfy his creditors, Fyodor Dostoevsky famously wrote The Gambler in four weeks. He was a roulette demon with a habit of losing more than he won. If he finished this new book in less than a month, all his debts would be cleared; if he failed, he'd lose everything. Dostoevsky pulled it off, of course; and in a final coup, he later married the stenographer who'd helped him.
My Time of Not Dying
My Time of Not Dying Sometime later this month I will inject myself with insulin for the three-thousandth time. I take two units of fast-acting insulin before each meal, and 10 units of basal insulin before bed each night. I have not done the math on how much insulin this means I have ingested in total, but let’s agree: it’s a lot. A unit of insulin is defined officially by the Worldwide Health Organization’s Expert Committee on Biological Standardization.
The Fault in Our Rock Stars
Rock stardom isn’t compatible with satisfaction; it is, in essence, satisfaction’s very antithesis. To be a rock star is to revel in need, because it is the ongoing and relentless need of the audience that calls them into being. Time has not been particularly kind to the guitar gods who ruled the pop firmament when I came of age. My musical tastes were fairly typical for a pre-pubescent, middle-class white boy of the ’80s.
Reading Together Even While Reading Alone
I probably shouldn't admit that I keep an Excel spreadsheet to track what books I've read in a given year. The file spans seventeen years, a book lover's rap sheet, for sure; at my best, I was reading just under 50 books a year, a rate that I felt proud of. Unfortunately, I've been reading steadily fewer books over the years. I'm sure Excel could generate an instructive and depressing chart to illustrate this. After the birth of my daughter, I fell from tallies in the forties to the thirties.
HBO (Isn't) Filming The Corrections at My Parents' House: TV and Fiction
1. A location scout came through my parents' neighborhood last month and slid a letter printed on blue paper into each house's screen door. The letter had HBO's (fuzzily reproduced and definitely not hi-res) logo at the top and announced in all capital letters that a production team had descended on Mount Vernon, N.Y., in hopes of finding a "HOUSE WITH AN ATTACHED GARAGE." It happens that Chez Aronstein has one of those, and my mother found a copy of the letter when she got home from work.
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