Emma Straub on late blooming writers: The other glorious, inspiring truth is that some people are naturally late bloomers. Leonard Cohen didn’t release his first album until he was 32. Julia Child didn’t move to Paris until she was 36, and she didn’t get her famous television show until she was 51. Wallace Stevens didn’t publish any poems until he was […]
The venerable Atlantic offered a list of the best 25 book covers of the year. Exclusively for your viewing pleasure, I’ve pulled together some of the worst book covers. Enjoy. 1. Police cars in space? That’s killer national security. 2. This cover definitely makes me want to buy. 3. Want to learn how to publish […]
Cheap, neurotic writers throughout the globe took to the streets on Friday night to protest austerity measures at Duotrope, the website that catalogues fiction markets. Spurred by the news that Duotrope was going to wall off its fiction listings to paid subscribers only, writers protested in the way that only writers can — a few […]
Antoine Wilson, author of the newly released novel Panorama City, was gracious enough to answer interview questions via email for BookFox. Wilson’s previous novel “The Interloper” was fantastic, and he is a sterling member of the Los Angeles literary community, in addition to being a really nice guy (at least at the literary parties where […]
In Salman Rushdie’s memoir Joseph Anton, he talks a lot about his writing process, and how he learned to write while under the fatwa. Below are snippets of advice gleaned from the book, and remember that this was written in the third person, so when there is a “he” or “Joseph Anton,” that refers to […]
Marilynne Robinson on how she teaches her students: “I try to make writers actually see what they have written, where the strength is. Usually in fiction there’s something that leaps out—an image or a moment that is strong enough to center the story. If they can see it, they can exploit it, enhance it, and […]
Colm Toibin on writers: “You have to be a terrible monster to write. Someone might have told you something they shouldn’t have told you, and you have to be prepared to use it because it will make a great story. You have to use it even though the person is identifiable. If you can’t do […]
David Foster Wallace wrote a postcard to a fan, and the fan writes about moving from initial disappointment to a gradual realization of what Wallace was trying to say. Yes, even DFW postcards can be deep: “[David Foster Wallace] was telling me what I already knew but had forgotten over the long years of struggling for […]
Jonathan Franzen was wrong about many things. About Oprah’s book club. About the value of Twitter. About the quality of Freedom. But he was not wrong about Paula Fox. Franzen championed Fox (no relation to your proprietor) early in his career, before he published The Corrections, talking her up in essays in Harper’s and writing […]
