At My Life and Thoughts, Elif Batuman–in delightfully Elifish style–describes her first book travails and unveils a preliminary sketch for the cover of her forthcoming first book The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, drawn by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast.
Adventures in Publishing
Kartika Review
M. Evelina Galang, author of Her Wild American Self and current director of the University of Miami's MFA Creative Writing Program, is featured in the latest issue of Kartika Review, "a national Asian/Pacific Islander American literary arts journal." You can read the entire Fall 2011 issue for free.
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Maureen Corrigan on Lacuna
NPR's Maureen Corrigan applauds Barbara Kingsolver's Lacuna for "single-handedly keeping consumer zest alive for the literary novel," as "the only literary novel caught in the cross hairs" of the price wars waged by Wal-mart, Amazon, and Target against booksellers (the others being genre novels). As for the book itself: "I wish I could say she also deserves kudos for writing a spectacular work of fiction..."
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Devastating Stories
Recommended Reading: "The Misanthropic Genius of Joy Williams" in The New York Times Magazine. Her latest collection of short stories, The Visiting Privilege: New and Collected Stories, which was included on our most anticipated list, will be released on September 8th. “When I asked Williams what she wants out of a great story, she replied, ‘I want to be devastated in some way.’”
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Tweet to Win
Electric Literature and Colson Whitehead are holding a Twitter contest. Best tweet on the theme #stuffmymusesays wins a Sony Reader.
The Dangerous Women of Westeros
George R. R. Martin’s publisher shared an excerpt from the author’s story, “The Princess and The Queen, or, The Blacks and The Greens.” The piece serves as a “Westerosi history lesson on the Targaryen Civil War,” and covers "the Causes, Origins, Battles, and Betrayals of that Most Tragic Bloodletting Known as the Dance of the Dragons." It will be bundled along with 20 other stories in the forthcoming Dangerous Women collection. The question remains, however: what kind of recipes does it feature?
Righteous Anger
You’ve probably heard the sad news that Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman passed away on May 2nd. In memory of Hanneman's work with the band, Greg Pollock wrote a paean to God Hates Us All, “the most important album in [his] life.”
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CSI Amsterdam
“We are not trying to point fingers or prosecute. I am just trying to solve the last case of my career. There is no statute of limitation on the truth.” A retired FBI agent has launched a cold case review into identifying those who may have betrayed Anne Frank's hiding place to the Gestapo in 1944, reports The Guardian.