Curated playlist
21st-century American writers
- Kevin SmithKevin Smith maxed out credit cards and sold his comic books to make Clerks. The film raised $27,575 and won at Sundance.
- Andrea BartzAndrea Bartz is an American writer of mystery and thriller novels. Her name now appears in a courtroom fight over how machines learn to write. The case turned on a simple question with a hard answer. Can a company teach its software by…
- Jamie Lee CurtisJamie Lee Curtis accepted a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 78th Venice International Film Festival in September 2021, and she did not sound like a person winding down. "I feel so alive, like I'm this 14-year-old person just…
- David LettermanDavid Letterman got fired from campus radio for treating classical music irreverently.
- Willie NelsonWillie Nelson plays a classical guitar with a hole worn through its face. Decades of strumming with a pick have scoured a wide sweep of wood away beside the sound hole. Classical guitars are made for fingers, so this one has no pickguard…
- Steve DitkoSteve Ditko covered Spider-Man's face because it looked too young. He reasoned a full mask would add mystery.
- Courtney LoveCourtney Love walked on stage at the Reading Festival on the 26th of August 1994 as the singer of Hole. It was her first public performance since the death of her husband, the Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. MTV called the set "by turns…
- Billy Bob ThorntonBilly Bob Thornton was working as a waiter at an industry event in Los Angeles when he found himself serving the film director Billy Wilder. Thornton struck up a conversation with him. Wilder's advice was simple: think about becoming a…
- Mark HamillMark Hamill voiced Ukraine's air raid alert app as Luke Skywalker. Each alert ended with "May the Force be with you".
- Harold BloomHarold Bloom argued that every poet struggles to escape the shadow of earlier poets.
- Billy Dee WilliamsBilly Dee Williams became an actor only to pay for paints. He had wanted to be a painter.
- Donald F. GlutDonald Frank Glut was born on the 19th of February 1944, and his career refuses to stay in one lane. He has written novels, cartoons, comics and books about dinosaurs. He has directed horror films and played bass in a band. Most people who…
- Jim ShooterJim Shooter was 14 when DC Comics bought his scripts. His first paycheck went toward a rebuilt family car engine.
- Daryl HannahDaryl Hannah, born in Chicago on the 3rd of December 1960, once chained herself to a walnut tree and stayed there for three weeks. The tree stood on a farm in South Central Los Angeles. Most audiences knew her from the screen instead. She…