The Miserable Wonderfulness of M. Houellebecq

Bad news for writers: shyness can’t be cured. Good news for writers: shyness makes us more creative.

Andrew Ross Sorkin’s financial crisis post mortem Too Big to Fail is slated to get the Hollywood treatment. Curtis Hanson will direct the likes of Paul Giamatti as Ben Bernanke, James Woods as Dick Fuld, and Billy Crudup as Timothy Geithner. (Thanks, Derek)

Though no big name today, early 20th-century poet Florence Ripley Mastin published prolifically in her lifetime – a dozen times in Poetry, more than 90 in the New York Times. Poetry’s  Ruth Graham argues that the successes of Mastin, an untrained amateur, say more about her times than her talent. These days, amateur poets today benefit from refrigerator poetry sets, numerous poetry apps and sites, and the infinite community of the internet, but the Times has long excised poetry from its pages. In the archives, Patrick Wensink meets and analyzes those who doggedly pursue poetry these faded days.

“Like moss, my family grew on a mountain. In the utmost northwest of Spain, they set down roots so thick that only despair could rip them out.” Lorena Piñeiro writes at Midnight Breakfast about her family and penance. Pair with a piece on the business of nonfiction.

Recommended Viewing: The Stanley Kubrick exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The event will run through June 2013, but you can check out some images of the exhibit online.