A writer pitches an addiction, and a subsequent addiction memoir (working title: Running Up a Glass Hill on Roller Skates) to a publisher, at McSweeneys.
How to Pitch Your Addiction Memoir
The Ideal Essay
“An ideal essay is hard to define, but easy to point to. An ideal essay mines the “I” in efforts of high exposition. It is driven by a need to testify or witness, and demands the same of its reader. It is a glimpse of something uncomfortably recognizable, a requiem for the quotidian, a look over the newly-gilded edge.” Samantha Tucker Iacovetto writes about “Defining the Ideal Essay” for Brevity’s Nonfiction Blog
Bohane Wins the IMPAC
Kevin Barry has won the lucrative €100,000 2013 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his first novel City of Bohane, capably reviewed in these pages over a year ago by Bill Morris (whose drawing of Barry illustrates the piece). You can also relive this year’s massive longlist and quirky shortlist.
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Just a Little Chunk of Change
“Located along a private beach on 235 Middle Neck Road, this opulent Gatsby-inspiring estate spans over 5 acres. A mere 25 minutes away from New York City by boat, this home is the perfect scene for a roaring 20s party. Just picture the glitz and glamour of fireworks reflecting across the water at all hours of the night.” For a cool $16.9 million you, too, can live in the home that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald. Pair with our own Sonya Chung on adding The Great Gatsby to her teaching syllabus.
The Literary Criticism of T.S. Eliot
“[M]ore people have thought Hamlet a work of art because they found it interesting, than have found it interesting because it is a work of art.” Who other than T.S. Eliot could get away with questioning the artistic quality of Hamlet?
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‘Lost’ Novel Found
Does it come as any surprise that Lost creator J.J. Abrams would write a book that his editor describes as “the most high concept novel I have ever come across“?
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Ostentatiously Withholding Information?
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is scooping up award nominations left and right. Given the relative heaping of praise, it’s interesting to hear a dissenting voice. This review from the London Review of Books offers us just that. If it’s more Yanagihara you’re after, here she is in a recent interview for The Millions.
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