BookFox turns 4 years old this week. That’s ancient in blog years, but it’s not off to the nursing home yet. Still got some spunk left. Many thanks to all the readers, commenters and contributors for a fun four years. May the next year be even better.
I have a problem with talking about your publication records using the term "credits." I see it fairly frequently in literary journals bios: "Her publication credits include Granta and Paris Review." The term "credit" is an financial one. Credits are given and received in an "economy" — by which I mean any system of exchange […]
Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and smart phones are not merely new avenues of disseminating fiction. They create new parameters and challenges for fiction to utilize. The medium matters — there is no such thing as a "neutral" medium. The main mistake readers make is believing that the content is transferable between mediums — that a story […]
May has official been designated Short Story Month. Not only has Dan Wickett of Emerging Writer’s Network been blitzing out interviews and critiques and articles every May to celebrate the month, but this year even Poets & Writers formally recognized the efforts. Over at EWN, there’s a number of us contributing to a discussion of […]
One of the most common critiques I hear for short story collections is that they’re “uneven.” I don’t hear it very often for novels, and only occasionally as a critique of an author’s oeuvre. A few brief samples: Publisher’s Weekly called David Foster Wallace’s “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men” uneven. Seattle Times called Evan S. […]
I wrote several posts for the LA Times that are now up on Jacket Copy. One of the best panels I've ever attended was "Life Stories," featuring the new Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Harding ("Tinkers") and Rafael Yglesias, winner of the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award (not to mention Colson Whitehead and moderator David Kipen). […]
I’m here at the Publishing: Editors Speak Out panel at the LA Times Festival of Books. All of us in the front row are laughing, because it feels like we’re in an orchestra pit — the stage is that elevated in Broad 2160. I’m a bit fearful because publishing panels can turn into zombie attacks […]
I’m looking forward to all the fun and hubbub surrounding this weekend at the LA Times Festival of Books. I know I’ll sit in on at least three panels: Yann Martel in conversation with Michael Silverblatt Unstoppable Voices Susan Straight Maile Meloy Mona Simpson Jane Smiley Marianne Wiggins Life Stories Paul Harding (author of Tinkers, […]
At the VQR blog, there's a perfect and funny recap of how AWP feels: At AWP, you sit at a table in the book fair peddling your literary journal, try to answer writers when they ask why you haven’t published their work, walk past tables of literary journals, wondering why they won’t publish your work, […]
I’m perpetually amazed by the publications people put together. Sometimes less amazed and more amused. Sometimes less amused and more stunned. Literature isn’t dying, it’s just mutating into the place where really whacked out people publish it. Let’s be honest: these calls for submissions are crazy. Monsters and Mormons Anthology: They say that since Mormons have been […]
