A Flash Fiction Roundtable: Short but Never Small
Prose poetry and vignettes are driven by imagery and emotion whereas flash fiction has an almost desperate need to tell a story before it’s too late.
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The Millions Top 10
The Man in the White Suit: Remembering Tom Wolfe
I looked in his eyes and saw the haunted, hunted animal look I know I have in my eyes when the shit is hitting the fan. And I thought to myself, “God bless you, Tom. You’re a working stiff after all.”
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Who Will Buy Your Book?
I am here to tell you: most people in your family will never buy your book. Most of your friends won’t either.
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Dear Reader
"Puzzled as to why her mother had not figured out “Miriam” on her own — or why, after Capote became famous, she did not say much about her letter and his answer — Ms. Akers sought clues." The New York Times writes about recently discovered letter from Truman Capote to a young reader who misunderstood his first published story. Read our own Michael Bourne on the tragedy of Capote's life.
A Bacon Bookmark
Bacon. Cheese slices. A saw blade. Buttered broccoli. Librarians around the world lament the strangest food (and non-food) items their patrons have used as bookmarks (via The Guardian). Pair with: an essay on librarians, sex, and stereotypes.
Working-Class Heroine
"That no-way-out is really the difference between boys and girls in working-class culture, because a working-class boy could run, or could when I was growing up." Guernica interviews Dorothy Allison about literature as glory; survival, opportunity, and gender; and working-class heroes vs. heroines. For your reading consideration: Bill Morris's essay on the riches of "white trash" literature.
Elena Ferrante’s Writing Process, Translated
"Patriarchal domination, even — despite appearances — in the West, is still very entrenched, and each of us, in the most diverse places, in the most varied forms, suffers the humiliation of being a silent victim or a fearful accomplice or a reluctant rebel or even a diligent accuser of victims rather than of the rapists. Paradoxically, I don’t feel that there are great differences between the women of the Neapolitan neighborhood whose story I told and Hollywood actresses or the educated, refined women who work at the highest levels of our socioeconomic system. " In a rare interview, Elena Ferrante discuses the #meToo movement, Naples and her writing process for the Neapolitan novels in a rare interview translated from the original French.
The Strange and the Divine: On Rita Bullwinkel’s ‘Belly Up’
All of Bullwinkel’s stories unlock something. The strongest pieces fling the whole thing open. Burn the house down. Others are a mere suggestion of what lies outside, a hint that things are not as they appear. That is like life.
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SPONSORS
The Burden and Necessity of Genre
Something doesn’t feel right about defining my novel, about giving it a genre (a word that has always conjured for me cover images of bursting corsets and rippled abdominals). Something doesn’t feel right about defining novels at all.
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Table Talk in Austenworld
In Austenworld, meals are much more about the rank and file than about the elites. Here, conversation goes to the quick, to the bold, and to those who care the most—not to those with credentials or book deals.
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