Novelist and blogger M.J. Rose thinks authors’ personal marketing efforts should be more substantially rewarded; Robert Miller, president and publisher of HarperStudio, responds with a proposal to restructure the author-publisher relationship into 50-50 profit-sharing, as HarperStudio has done.
Profit-Sharing for Authors and Publishers
A Front-Row Seat
For the most part, Alexis de Tocqueville had good things to say about the young United States in his book Democracy in America, which is probably why we tend to forget that he thought Americans weren’t funny. What de Tocqueville missed, according to a new history of American humor, is the extent to which American funniness emerged from subversive groups of outsiders. In Bookforum, Ben Schwartz takes stock of the arguments in American Fun.
Literature on Tape
In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, the Library of Congress has made 50 recordings from the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape available online. Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriela Mistral, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, and others read from their work.
Shirley Jackson in the Woods
The New Yorker has published another recently discovered Shirley Jackson short story “The Man in the Woods,” a fairy tale that takes on some classic mythology. According to her son, it’s one of many new stories found in her archives, and we can expect a new collection next year. “What was surprising to us was not that she was so prolific and had left behind so much unseen work but, rather, the quality of that work,” Laurence Jackson Hyman said.
From a Deeper Part of the Cave
“A novel is a trek home from the desert, sometimes a journey you wish you had never started. Exhausting and humbling, just occasionally wonderful. But a short story can come from a deeper part of the cave.” Jane Gardam on why she prefers writing short stories instead of novels in The Guardian. Pair with Lisa Peet’s essay on Gardam’s organically grown characters.
A message for all my juggalettes and juggalos out there
The Rumpus has a little round up of links in anticipation of the 13th annual Gathering of the Juggalos. If you’re at all fascinated by the devoted fans of Insane Clown Posse, or if you yourself are one, you’d probably get a lot out of Kent Russell’s excellent essay “American Juggalo” in issue no. 12 of n+1.
Fun Home Coda
“If you can get some brilliant artists to make a musical about your childhood, I highly recommend it. It’s very cathartic.” Recent MacArthur fellow Alison Bechdel‘s hugely successful graphic memoir, Fun Home, has been adapted into a Broadway musical, and now she’s written a coda to the book that looks at what the musical has meant to her and what it could have meant to her parents. Pair with our interview with Bechdel here.