I’ve been amused by the fake twitter accounts (twitterjackings) that I’ve come across recently. Of course there are famous rip-offs. No, that’s not really Steve Jobs, sorry. And Condoleezza Rice isn’t tweeting, “LOL! G.W. likes fruitcake.” But the ones I’ve been encountering have been in the literary realm. Billy Collins started following me, and offering […]
John Freeman’s been popping up with some regularity, mostly in reference to being named Granta’s new editor after Alex Clark resigned. Since the average appointment of Granta’s editors seems to be something in the range of about 2 days (okay, bit of hyperbole, there — or if you’re into tropes, actually a litote — they […]
Louis Menand’s piece in the summer fiction issue of The New Yorker, “Show or Tell,” has been stirring up the old MFA debates around the internets. Obstensibly, it’s a review of Mark McGurl’s new book, “The Program Era,” which seems to be arguing that MFA programs impacted fiction during the last fifty years (big surprise!) […]
“House” might be the most boring premise ever for a nonfiction book. It’s a story about three circles of people — the homeowners, the architect, and the builders — as a house gets built. But it’s absolutely enthralling. Between “House” and “The Soul of a New Machine,” Kidder had me hooked a good while back, […]
The June issue of Open Letters Monthly is out — A Fiction Issue, no less — and it’s a doozy. Not only a ton of reviews, including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck, reviewed by John Madera, but the genuine article of fiction itself. This issue includes six short stories/novel excerpts. Also, I […]
Happy Birthday to me. Or, well, BookFox. I’ve come so far from that fateful first post about meeting Jonathan Safran Foer. It’s been three wonderful years, and I’m so glad to get through the terrible twos. Thanks to my faithful readers, and may there be much more literary fun to come.
Tin House just put out a collection of essays with writers on writing, called The Writer’s Notebook. Many essays came from the Tin House Writing Workshops, and some were gleaned from elsewhere. Brilliant stuff, and not at all the hackneyed tired advice you find in so many writing books. For instance, I really appreciated Aimee […]
The economic trickle down has started to affect an area of publishing where monies are usually scarce to begin with: The Literary Journal. Inside Higher Ed announced that Middlebury College is demanding that the New England Review become financially independent. Jacket Copy covers the story, and at the VQR blog, Ted Genoways argues for the […]
The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award Longlist was announced last week, but it’s only a list of all eligible collections, not whittled down from a larger body of contenders. Really, it’s less of an honor for those nominated than a PR move. Of course, the leadership of the prize hardly follows convention, especially when […]
Joseph O’Neill (Netherland) ostensibly reviews Brad Gooch’s biography about Flannery O’Connor in the June issue of Atlantic Monthly, but really gives us an thoughtful essay about O’Connor and O’Neill’s responses to her work. His main thrust is that O’Connor received fame early — she never eked out an existence as a struggling writer — yet […]
