Are you lover or writer of florid longwinded codswollop? The Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest might be for you.
Sublimely Bad?
An Irish Take on the NYC Grid
New York City's municipal grid turns 200 this year. To commemorate, author and Year in Reading alumna Belinda McKeon notes the way New Yorkers utilize it as they "don't wander so much as dart" from place to place.
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eReaders Versus the Printed Page
PCWorld releases a study on whether the iPad and Kindle make for slower readers than the printed page. (via AuthorScoop)
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Africa’s 54th State
The Republic of South Sudan has declared independence. Just three years ago, Dave Eggers published Out of Exile: Narratives from the Abducted and Displaced People of Sudan (Voice of Witness). The Guardian has an excerpt. A year later, Jamal Mahjoub foresaw the secessionist fervor south of Darfur.
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Whitman on Poe
“Poe’s verses illustrate an intense faculty for technical and abstract beauty, with the rhyming art to excess, an incorrigible propensity toward nocturnal themes, a demoniac undertone behind every page—and, by final judgment, probably belong among the electric lights of imaginative literature, brilliant and dazzling, but with no heat.” - Walt Whitman on Edgar Allan Poe’s significance, circa 1880.
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Lit Mags, Ahoy!
Three cheers for literary magazines, eh? Do yourself a favor and check out Tin House’s new Portland/Brooklyn issue (with mixtape to match!), DIAGRAM 12.4, Hobart’s revamped website (with daily content!), and the brand new Revolver magazine out in the Twin Cities.
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Florida’s Poet Laureate
David Axelrod makes the case for Florida to establish a four-year, renewable position as state poet laureate. With any luck, the program could begin by June 1. Florida has been absent a state poet since Edmund Skellings passed away in August, 2012
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