At McSweeney’s, Shakespearean letters to Santa.
Santa, my Liege
How to Write about Art
Possibly inspired by YiR alum Elizabeth McCracken, who tweeted out tips for applying to MFA programs last week, Zak Smith (the man who painted every single page of Gravity’s Rainbow) tweeted a series of tips for aspiring art critics. Among other advice, he dictates to his tweeps: “If Andy Warhol could have made it, do not write about it.”
●
●
Ocean Vuong and the Grieving World
Ocean Vuong discusses Time Is a Mother, which he wrote while mourning his mother, bearing witness to love, loss, and trauma.
●
●
●
Tom McCarthy Gets Interviewed
“There is a vicious rumor circulating that Tom McCarthy is the writer of our generation,” writes Christopher Bollen in Interview as he, ahem, interviews the author and Millions Year in Reading alum.
The Millennials Are Alright
The Bygone Bureau’s latest ebook, The Graduates, is intended to be “a response to all of these half-hearted pieces about how screwed Millennials are,” says editor Kevin Nguyen. “It’s true that graduating in 2009 didn’t provide the best job market, but in a lot of ways, those struggles have actually led to more interesting experiences and opportunities. And we wanted to capture that optimism.” You can catch two excerpts from the collection over here and over here.
●
●
Les Misérables: Now 100% Brawnier
The latest project from King’s Speech director Tom Hopper will be a big-screen version of Les Misérables, starring Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean and Russell Crowe as Javert. You can check out the trailer over here.
●
●
The Fire in Fiction
In the wake of the Notre Dame fire in Paris, Victor Hugo's classic novel, 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame,' has risen to the top of France's bestseller list.
●
●
●
Un Bon Dia
To begin to translate a book, you need to hone your knowledge of the language in which it’s written. To write a great essay about translating a book, you need a backstory, an interesting format and two or three foreign parables. At The Rumpus, Brian Oliu writes about translating his grandfather’s book from the Catalan.
●
●
RIP Harry Crews
Dwight Garner, Maud Newton, and Jason Diamond are among the many to mourn the passing of Harry Crews this past week. “Few writers,” Garner writes of Crews, “could touch his authority and muscle.”
●
●