Dearest readers, the voting is now open in the 3 Quarks Daily Arts & Literature prize judged by Laila Lalami. Read and vote for your favorite piece from The Millions here!
Vote for your Millions!
Ill Will
Did our interview with Hilary Mantel yesterday pique your interest in her latest book? The Times has an excerpt you can read. Elsewhere, Damian Barr (who conducted the interview) pens a response to Lord Bell, who recently suggested that Scotland Yard should investigate Mantel for criminal intent.
●
●
The Internet and Self-Publishing
“Publishers, writers, and readers alike really need to sit down and take this trend [the rise of self-publishing] seriously, rather than using the poetry.coms and AuthorHouses of the world as straw-men, scapegoats, piñatas, or other bludgeonable what-have-yous in the same tired and ineffectual arguments about how the Internet is ruining the publishing industry.”
●
●
Como?
Here at The Millions, we tend to focus on translation as a literary form, which often leads to debates over how much a translator can change the meaning of a text. However, the majority of translation in the world is far more functional, as it is in the case of basic European bureaucracy. In The Nation, Benjamin Paloff takes a broader look at movements from one language to another. Pair with: Barclay Bram Shoemaker on translating Mo Yan’s Frog.
●
●
I’ll take “Maps” for a thousand, Alex.
“Jeopardy!” champion Ken Jennings charts “the wide, weird world of geography” in his latest book Maphead. NPR investigates his process in a “Fresh Air” interview. Scribner Books provides a small sample as well. While discussing the particulars of America’s “Road Geeks,” Jennings makes it clear to this listener that he’d probably be interested in Cynthia Enloe and Joni Seager’s The Real State of America Atlas, which was reviewed by our own Bill Morris last July.
Hustle and Flow
The writer needs to be a hustler to survive, essayist Aaron Gilbreath argues. He literally took to the streets of Portland to hand sell his work. Pair with our essay, “Instant Lessons: First Novel Karma.”
●
●