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?
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Calling All Foer-Besotted 10-Year-Olds
Spotted on the streets of New York: a casting call for a “10-13 year old Caucasian male” to play protagonist Oskar Schell in Stephen Daldry‘s upcoming film adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer‘s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Notable Goyim Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock are attached to the project, as Oskar’s parents.
“My name is Geoff Dyer and I endorse this.”
Geoff Dyer endorses Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station , John Jeremiah Sullivan’s Pulphead –our own Bill Morris loves it too!–and a generalized aversion toward seafood in his interview with Morten Høi Jensen for Book Forum. While they ostensibly met to talk about Zona–reviewed on The Millions here–it’s perhaps unsurprising that they managed to digress so liberally: “we chatted about his review of Richard Bradford’s Martin Amis: the Biography, and by the end he was giving me advice about which David Markson book I should read first. Our interview, in other words, assumed the shape of a Geoff Dyer book.”
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Dificil
Growing up, Judy Bolton-Fasman watched her mother study Don Quixote, propping the book up on their kitchen counter while studying for her Master’s in Spanish literature. Her mother was a native speaker, but Cervantes was still a tough writer to figure out, especially if you were reading his work while trying to cook dinner in the background. The author looks back on her mother’s education in a Saturday Essay for The Rumpus.
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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.