“Why can’t we keep our literary heroes where they belong, at the top of the bookshelf next to all the others? And why must we ache for their approval, their admiration, their love?” Alex Gilvarry posts about writers who dare to approach their literary heroes for the Paris Review Daily.
Approaching Your Literary Heroes
Sex, Violence, & Satire Contest
Mixer publishing is running a “Sex, Violence, & Satire” contest with a $1,000 prize, and there’s still time to enter. So, if you’ve been chewing on the idea of writing a story containing “sex and satire,” “violence and satire,” or “sex, violence, and satire,” then consider this motivation to finish it up.
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The Billionaire is Dead…
At long last, a viable alternative to Mike Bloomberg and Bill Thompson has entered the NYC mayoral race. This candidate’s “zero tolerance anti-hipster policy” is certainly worth a look.
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Read Yourself Civilized
In the latest issue of The Boston Review, Elaine Scarry reviews Steven Pinker’s
The Better Angels of Our Nature. Pinker argues that literature, by bolstering man’s empathy, has lead to huge reductions in worldwide violence, a thesis that sounds dangerously close to the absurd pop-science of Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal.
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Writing Indifferently
How was Charlotte Brontë at 8? According to her school reports, she “‘[wrote] indifferently’ and ‘[knew] nothing of grammar, geography, history, or accomplishments”. Of course, she went on to write Jane Eyre, and as The Guardian points out, many a famous writer received middling reports in school, so maybe there’s hope for other “indifferent’ writers.
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Writing By Heart
We’ve told you about The Atlantic’s By Heart series a few times before. Now, here’s a compendium of some of the series’ best advice on writing collected from the past year.
Whitman Passes Away
George Whitman, owner of the storied Parisian English-language bookstore Shakespeare & Company, died this week at the age of 98.