If you like your music country/folk-ish with a difference, Joshua James new album Build Me This might be of interest. No Depression, the roots music blog, describes the album as a hybrid of “chain-gang chants, country-fuzz rave-ups, gospel rafter-raisers, southern blues grinds, and civil war camp songs.” Try not to be taken aback by the Jared Leto-in-a-mud-mask cover art.
Joshua James
The Plagiarist
“How I wish he’d stuck to being himself. Instead, he chose to be me.” How it feels to have one’s poetry plagiarized.
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Memories of Home
For NPR, Joyce Carol Oates talks about her childhood home and how it’s influenced her as a person and a writer. Pair with Brittani Sonnenberg’s Millions essay on finding a home as a writer.
A New Kind of Book Review
A new kind of book review: 5 artists interpret and critique literature through works of visual art.
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Strong Misgivings
Recommended Reading: Three poems at The Rumpus by Dean Rader.
Sometimes You Feel
Can’t wait for Haruki Murakami’s new novel? You’re in luck: Slate just published an exclusive excerpt from the book. Sample quote: “No matter how quiet and conformist a person’s life seems, there’s always a time in the past when they reached an impasse. A time when they went a little crazy. I guess people need that sort of stage in their lives.” (You could also read Ben Dooley’s review of 1Q84.)
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Let’s Have a Panel About It
Man Booker Prize-winner Marlon James is finished talking about diversity, and here’s part of his logic: “A panel on diversity is like a panel on world peace. It should be seeking a time when we no longer need such panels. It should be a panel actively working towards its own irrelevance. The fact that we’re still having them not only means that we continue to fail, but the false sense of accomplishment in simply having one is deceiving us into thinking that something was tried.”