Andrew Ladd

*the author, not the hockey player

Nonfiction

I've published all kinds of nonfiction, from book reviews to essays to big honking pieces of creative nonfiction. Here's a select list.

Creative nonfiction

This is an opaque term that people with masters degrees in creative writing use a lot. It generally means "something where I talk about my feelings, which I probably didn't get paid much for."

On A Scotch Bard, Gone to the West Indies

Big Truths • September 2014 • Online only

"You got all Scottish back there," says my brother, Marco, smirking as our taxi rumbles away. It's July 2010, and we're outside our family home in Edinburgh, fresh off the plane from two weeks in Canada - and though I try to brush off his comment I know exactly what he means.

Read "On A Scotch Bard, Gone to the West Indies" (External link)

Some Words and Their Meanings

Memoir • December 2012 • Print only

When I was fifteen, I received a dictionary anonymously in the mail.

Not available online.

When Life Hands You Lemon Slices

Draft Magazine • August 2011 • Print and online

I was 20 when I visited Lithuania almost a decade ago, for the first and only time. There are lots of good reasons to remember the trip: the picturesque countryside, the fascinating historic sites, and where I stayed in an old, crumbling apartment building across from the Finnish embassy, whose 24-hour guard stared suspiciously whenever I came and went. Instead, though, what I remember best is a single pint of hefeweizen.

No longer available online.

This Modern Writer: The Importance of Revision

PANK • June 2011 • Online only

People often meet their future spouses at grad school, but when I moved to Boston for a master's program I had the express goal of avoiding any serious relationship. I was there for a degree in fiction, I told myself. To get better at writing stories, and nothing else.

Read "This Modern Writer: The Importance of Revision" (External link)

Essays & Articles

These are more conventional pieces of opinion-led journalism.

Three Things Writers Can Learn From Solange and Jay Z

Ploughshares • May 2014 • Online only

Solange, whose sister, Beyonce Knowles, is married to Jay Z, attacked the latter in an elevator last week as all three of them were leaving a swanky party in Manhattan. Leaked video of the altercation soon prompted a storm of speculation, both online and in print. What could have provoked Solange to lash out like that? Whither such vitriol? We'll likely never know the answer - but amongst all our feverish attempts to uncover the truth this past week, there's a lot we can learn about writing good fiction.

Read "Three Things Writers Can Learn From Solange and Jay Z" (External link)

Blurbese: "deeply felt"

Ploughshares • February 2013 • Online only

In general, I dislike curmudgeonly fiats contra adverb. However, there are a couple of cases where I think specific adverbs ought to be banned outright. One of those is the book review phrase "deeply felt."

Read "Blurbese: "deeply felt"" (External link)

Blurbese: "best"

Ploughshares • January 2013 • Online only

Santa's not the only one who makes lists in December: come the end of the year, anyone who's ever expressed a passing literary opinion has their own rundown of the year's best books.

Read "Blurbese: "best"" (External link)

Blurbese: "The First _____"

Ploughshares • September 2012 • Online only

When Jonathan Franzen's Freedom was published, in 2010, the British Daily Telegraph called it "the first great American novel of the post-Obama era." If that sounds oddly specific (not to mention premature), they at least had good reason for it: the title of "first great American novel of the 21st century" had already been awarded to Franzen's earlier novel, The Corrections, by Elle magazine.

Read "Blurbese: "The First _____"" (External link)

Blurbese: direct quotations

Ploughshares • September 2012 • Online only

If you happened to read more than one review of J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy last month, you'll never look at a condom the same way again.

Read "Blurbese: direct quotations" (External link)

Blurbese: "a _____ debut"

Ploughshares • May 2012 • Online only

The prejudice against adjectives is a stupid one, an arbitrary holdover from Strunk and White, and it's all the more infuriating because reviewers flaunt it all the time - particularly when it comes to the word "debut." Rarely does this word appear without one - or more! - adjectives crammed in front of it, and worse, the ones that crop up the most have now taken on weird, book-review-specific meanings of their own.

Read "Blurbese: "a _____ debut"" (External link)

Bull Sessions: Journalism's Bloodsport Love Affair

Open Letters Monthly • April 2012 • Online only

We live in an age of outrage, yet one of our most egregious 'blood sports' escapes censure from the press. Since long before Hemingway, writers have been calling bullfighting exotic instead of barbaric -- what are they thinking?

Read "Bull Sessions: Journalism's Bloodsport Love Affair" (External link)

Blurbese: "unflinching"

Ploughshares • February 2012 • Online only

I think a lot of book reviewers were smacked as children. Some of them must have at least been bullied. How else to explain their admiration for the ability not to flinch?

Read "Blurbese: "unflinching"" (External link)

Ignorance Is Bliss

The Weekly Dig • December 2008 • Print only

"I don't know" is hardly an uncommon thing to say, but recently this phrase has started hanging out with an ugly new friend: "I'm too lazy too look it up."

Not available online.

Book reviews

These are... book reviews.

Canadian whodunit fun

This Magazine • July 2012 • Print only

A review of Fraser Nixon's novel The Man Who Killed.

Not available online.

Father Figures

The Good Men Project • June 2010 • Online only

You think you’re busy? Meet Galileo, Darwin, and Marx, who fathered schools of thought in between fathering children.

Read "Father Figures" (External link)