“If DBC Pierre wasn’t twelve scotches into a bender before he went on stage, I have lost a substantial wager.” Notes from the Melbourne Writers Festival, at the Electric Literature blog.
Notes from the Melbourne Writers Festival
Johnny Depp and Hunter S. Thompson
When Terry Gilliam adapted Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Johnny Depp portrayed protagonist Raoul Duke. It became one of his most iconic roles. Now, thirteen years later, Depp will play protagonist Paul Kemp in Bruce Robinson’s adaptation of The Rum Diary. You can check out the trailer here.
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“It was a strange choice to decide to pass as a Russian.”
You can read the first twenty pages of Karolina Waclawiak’s How To Get Into the Twin Palms – and if that hasn’t sold you yet, know this: this excerpt has some sexy stuff in it.
73 Ways to Become a Better Writer
For aspiring writers who prefer their advice in bulk, Mary Jaksch at the Huffington Post gives 73 suggestions for becoming a better writer.
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It Certainly Beats the Overlook
Now this is the kind of fellowship an author can really get behind: The Standard, East Village, has teamed up with The Paris Review to offer a free hotel room to a writer in need of “three weeks of solitude in downtown New York City.” The deadline for applications is November 1. And in case you’re wondering, the answer is yes. Of course the fellowship will conclude with a swank cocktail party.
Goon Squad to the Small Screen?
Well, this is interesting. HBO is looking at turning Jennifer Egan’s Pulitzer-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad into a TV series.
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Let’s Get a Move On, Scientists
David Graeber, author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years (which was brilliantly reviewed by Benjamin Kunkel in the LRB recently), wonders why the world doesn’t yet have any flying cars. It’s 2012, people!
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Jailhouse Rock
Can’t get enough of Orange is the New Black? Neither could The Missouri Review. Their new blog series, Literature on Lockdown, shares narratives from those who teach or write in prisons. This week’s post comes from Ace Boggess, a poet who spent five years in a West Virginia prison. “One thing about being a writer in prison is that you have not lost everything. You still have that driving need to speak whatever truth you know in whatever way you can. No one can take that away from you, not even the State.”
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