Bayside High as Playboy Mansion

David Grann in The New Yorker: "Did Texas execute an innocent man?" This is why long-form journalism matters.

As our own Nick Moran reported two weeks ago, Alice Munro has decided to retire from writing. Herewith, a timely profile of the author, courtesy of the Times. (You could also read Ben Dolnick on her last book of stories, Dear Life.)

"After ten years of painting, that is to say ten years of using an abstract, invented language, writing stories was the closest I had come to working in the realm of 'realism.' It was the most direct I had ever been in my art. Perhaps the most direct I had ever been. But, as I learned from the comments of my peers in workshop ('this isn’t a story,' 'this is poetry,' 'what is this'), my writing was something other than what we referred to as literary realism. By which I mean, the writing many have come to believe most accurately represents life." Susan Steinberg asks what happened to American experimental writing.

Live in San Francisco? Want to spend an evening with the fun-loving gang at The Rumpus? Well then, clear out your Saturday -- they're holding a  Literary Pub Crawl.

We all have a fantasy literary dinner party guest list, but Kathryn Ionata gives us six characters to never invite at The Toast. Unsurprisingly, Nine Stories's Seymour Glass is on her list. "When asked if he cares to sit at the table, he says he is seriously considering it."