Lev Grossman‘s article in the Wall Street Journal, “Good Books Don’t Have to Be Hard,” drew an interesting collection of comments, as well as a considered response from Christopher Beha at n+1.
Balance of Power: Grossman and Beha, Reader and Writer
“Maybe a mixtape will help.”
Recommended Reading: Rafe Posey’s Rumpus essay, “Coming Out, Again and Again, in 27 Easy Steps.”
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“Travel well”
Recommended Reading: this new Eileen Myles poem in the latest issue of Poetry.
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Edan, Meet Stephen
Our own Edan Lepucki's whirlwind tour continues. Her debut novel California landed at number 3 on the Times Bestseller list and she celebrated with a visit to The Colbert Report. There was a bubble wrap drop. New Yorkers can see her tonight at WORD bookstore in Brooklyn and tomorrow at McNally Jackson in Manhattan. See Edan's events page for the rest of her tour dates.
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Heineken Price is Going to Double
“A classic hustler and survivor … a type who never starts revolutions but who always figures out how to benefit from whatever the New Order is.” Some dispatches from a punk tour of the Balkans by Franz Nicolay, who may or may not be an asshole, big time.
Know The Rules Before You Break Them
Point: Dan Chaon believes younger writers should read more contemporary writing before attempting to be published themselves. Counterpoint: J. Robert Lennon believes most contemporary writing is a waste of would-be writers’ precious time. TL;DR Version: Nathan Elwood notes that if writers “want to change the face of literary fiction … [they should] at least know what it looks like.”
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The 80-page Rule
How do you know if the book you're writing is going to fly or flop? Try writing the first 80 pages without worrying about the outcome as Meg Wolitzer does. "Eighty pages is enough pages for a writer to feel she’s accomplished something, but it’s not so many pages that, if she decides to put aside the book, she’ll feel as if she’s wasted her life," she told the Daily Beast for its "How I Write" series. It must work because we loved The Interestings.
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Calling All Grammar Nazis
To quote Raymond Chandler: "When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will remain split." Or, dispelling grammar myths, like not ending sentences with prepositions.
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