From New York Magazine, a harrowing piece on “Full Fathom Five,” the young adult fiction factory spearheaded by James Frey, and the controversial contracts young writers are asked to sign.
James Frey’s Fiction Factory
A Novel of Imposture
Recommended Listening: David Naimon interviews Rikki Ducornet about her new novel, Brightfellow. Also check out this Millions review of the book.
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Cartoons, Politics, and Snowden
Guernica sits down with political cartoonist Ted Rall to talk about his new book, Snowden. “I spent a lot of time drawing Snowden for this book, and I really don’t understand his hair. If I ever meet him, I’m going to request to touch his hair.” For more on cartoons, we reviewed The Best American Comics 2014 (guest edited by Scott McCloud, who we interviewed earlier this year).
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You Won’t Believe What She Has to Say
Articles lamenting the supposed death of reading tend to include a gripe that we now spend too much time on the Internet. However, as those of you who read a lot of books and live partially on the Internet are aware, the two activities aren’t mutually exclusive. NPR’s Morning Edition has a new story (which includes our own Janet Potter discussing her rewriting of classic novel titles as click-bait headlines) about the intersection between the lit world and the meme world.
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Amazon or perish?
ICYMI: After Hachette writers banded together behind their publisher (piles of tweets, an author petition (pdf), a perplexing Malcolm Gladwell YouTube clip, and of course our own Edan Lepucki in Stephen Colbert's pre-order campaign), Amazon proposed giving authors "100% of proceeds" from ebooks -- that's including Hachette's share -- while they hashed things out. You gotta admire that gumption. Halfway around the world, a French court order just banned free delivery for discounted book orders--so Amazon now charges one cent. Also: they've got drones. The Times concludes that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
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On the Adjunct
McSweeney’s has a few classic college movies updated for the adjunct era. Spoiler Alert: Good Will Hunting has a very different ending.
Theory of Blog Posts
Over at HTMLGiant, A D Jameson offers summary and analysis of Viktor Shklovsky’s literary theory. The piece then invited some additional words from Helen Stuhr-Rommereim.
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