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?
Where the Letters Go
A startling conclusion from this data visualization of where in words each letter of the alphabet tends to fall: “the most common word may be ‘the, but the most representative word is ‘toe.’ ” (Also available: detailed methodology and algorithms for the data geeks; an explanation of data-viz as a narrative form for everyone else.)
The Wright Kind of Mess
In her review of Joe Wright’s cinematic adaptation for Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Amanda Shubert writes, “Anna Karenina (2012) is, in fact, a mess. But it’s the kind of mess probably only Wright could make.” She goes on to look at how Wright has adapted work by Jane Austen and Ian McEwan, and how he has continued to face the problem of representing literary style (and form) on the screen.
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There’s always funny in the banana stand.
Rolling Stone asked David Cross about Arrested Development‘s Netflix relaunch and he says it’s “audacious and amazing.“
I Is for Impressive
“It all started with A Is For Alibi, then came B Is For Burglar, C Is For Corpse and on and on through the alphabet.” NPR interviews Sue Grafton about her Kinsey Millhone series, currently spanning 25 letters – the newest and penultimate entry, Y for Yesterday, comes out today – and 35 years. Pair with Ujala Sehgal‘s list of five crime novels where women are the true detectives.
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The “Bad” Author Myth
On the heels of a New Mexico school district banning Neverwhere because a mother considered it “R-rated,” Neil Gaiman delivered a lecture for the Reading Agency about the importance of libraries and reading for children. “It’s tosh. It’s snobbery and it’s foolishness. There are no bad authors for children, that children like and want to read and seek out, because every child is different,” he said about banning books.
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Julian Assange Opens for M.I.A.
Now this is one of the strangest things to happen at a concert in a while: M.I.A. kicked off her tour to promote her new album Matangi by getting Julian Assange to open for her at Terminal 5. The Wikileaks founder spoke to the audience via Skype.
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Citizen of the Year Reading List
ICYMI Colin Kaepernick was named GQ‘s 2017 Citizen of the Year a few weeks ago. In light of this honor two of his closest friends “have compiled a list of ‘Freedom Dream’ resources spanning close to two centuries—including books, essays, films, documentaries, songs, and museums—that can help readers, viewers, and listeners to understand race as the central political, cultural, economic, social, and geographic organizing principle of our nation, past and present. For it is only when we acknowledge the centrality of race in dictating the outcomes of life and death in the United States can we begin to work toward meaningful forms of racial justice.” Find the books, music and movies that helped inspire Kaepernick (and that will enlighten you too) here.
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.