I’m on the road, typing this from an internet cafe that charges me 20 Colones per minute, so forgive me if this is short. I’ve been considering — since I’ve been away from my routine, about the public/private divide. I used to value them equally I thought — writing in my (private) journal had equal […]
Hey Loyal Readers, Posts will be slow in the next week because I'm backpacking through Costa Rica and working on an organic farm. I'll try to twitter some updates. Book in my backpack: Vonnegut's Bluebeard.
Ever since Roy won the Booker for "The God of Small Things," fans have been wanting more fiction. She´s been heading resoluting in another direction, though, one of nonfiction and political activism. (Although she admits to working on another novel). She now has four books of essays out. In a Guardian interview, she explains her […]
One of the best articles about organizing a story collection comes from David Jauss, in an article he wrote for Writer’s Chronicle, “Stacking Stones: Building a Unified Short Story Collection.” In it, he writes, “The placement of a story in a collection can alter both its meaning and its affect.” A bad order can ruin […]
Ted Striphas will challenge every entrenched notion you have about the publishing industry. You think Big-box retailers like Borders and B&N have put independents out of business? Striphas argues that other factors often contributed to the indie’s close, that the big-box retailers rectify the social/financial inequalities present around indie’s, and that big-boxers have a history […]
Brilliant and lengthy article at Fast Company on the changing landscape of books, publishers and e-books. The book industry is especially vulnerable because it is a “hits” business, with a small number of breakaway titles (Harry Potter, The Tipping Point, Twilight) subsidizing all the rest. Take away publishers’ best-sellers and you’re left with stacks of […]
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, […]
