Peter Hedges, author of the novel and screenplay for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, as well as Dan in Real Life, and Pieces of April, is set to adapt and direct his latest novel, The Heights. Set in Brooklyn Heights amid its wealthy, over-zealous, stay-at-home mommy set, the novel follows a happy, slightly down-at-the-heel couple as their marriage is tested by the arrival of another woman. (All of the wit of Tom Perrotta’s Little Children, but not quite so dark and cynical.)
Hedges’ The Heights
Doodles by Famous Authors
“Authors – especially those who wrote with pens instead of those soulless computer things – are prime doodlers.” Check out this gallery of doodles by famous authors, from Sylvia Plath to Franz Kafka to Henry Miller.
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“Gallop[ing] terribly”
We’re nearing the halfway point in football season (have you done your reading?), so that means it’s time to revisit one of the finest poems ever written about the game: James Wright’s “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio.”
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Boy, Girl, Book?
Is the practice of using writing as a metaphor for birth, or birth as a metaphor for writing, in need of an overhaul? Stephanie Feldman for Electric Literature has some strong opinions on the subject. Motherhood on the brain, now? Check out this moving essay for The Millions on mothers and sons by Rachel Basch.
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The Pioneer Detectives Comes to a TV Near You
Last week Konstantin Kakaes — whose new book The Pioneer Detectives is our latest Millions Original — led a discussion on “how scientists search for truth and how that search isn’t always straight-forward.” You can catch a broadcast of that discussion tonight on BookTV at 7:30 PM.
50 Favorite Fictional Women
Fifty authors, editors, and publishers, including Year in Reading alumnae Rachel Cantor and Julia Alvarez, have come together to discuss their favorite fictional women at Brooklyn Magazine.
Unpredictable Prestige
In 1929 readers ventured that John Galsworthy was the author most likely to be read in 100 years. Why were they so wrong?
Vote for The Millions at 3 Quarks Daily
Hey look, several pieces of ours are in the running to win 3 Quarks Daily Arts and Literature Prizes! On their voting page, you can cast your ballot for James McWilliams’s piece on Faulkner, our own Hannah Gersen’s appreciation of Friday Night Lights, or our own Nick Ripatrazone’s essay on teaching English, among other nominees.