Sam Tanenhaus, musing about the New Yorker “young writers” list points out that, far from being a writer’s formative years, many of the great classics in literary history were penned by writers in their 30s, or younger.
Are Young Writers in Their Prime?
“Anything but the perfect external man”
Philip Roth may have retired, but that doesn’t mean he’s done giving interviews. The author recently sat down with the editor of a Swedish newspaper, who talked with him about misogyny, Sabbath’s Theater and the need for “obstinacy” in a writer. (Related: our own Hannah Gersen reviewed Roth Unbound.) (h/t The Paris Review)
●
●
August Open Letters
The August issue of Open Letters is available. Nestled amidst the literary fare are early Oscar nominations from Sarah Hudson and a piece on the video game The Sims by Phillip A. Lobo.
2 comments:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Breaking the Binary
Rachel Klein writes on raising a genderqueer, non-binary child. “Being a parent means, at some point, being able to look on as your child writes their own story, a story in which you play a role but which is ultimately not about you.”
●
●
Amazon’s Best Books of 2015
Amazon has published its Top 100 books of 2015 list. Their favorite has already been hanging out in our Top Ten.
●
●
Terrific piece. I wonder whether some of this has to do with a change in how people become writers. Many of the authors in the top 20 have MFAs. So: They get a bachelor’s in something, then they either go into grad school, or perhaps take a few years off to work, then go into grad school. Grad studies are basically a form of apprenticeship. Today’s writer is often in his or her late 20s or 30s before making substantial story/book sales. In olden times (a couple decades or so ago), the person started doing serious writing sooner, I suspect.
I’d prefer the budding writer to spend more of their 20s working shitty jobs, traveling, and otherwise having experiences rather than sitting in more classrooms, no matter how how many encouraging mentors they might collect or however much networking they might do in those programs.
I didnt realize this at all, so from that standpoint the article was pretty eye opening. Authors creative peak mirroring an athletes physical peak, in roughly the same age groups.