Another deep dive into the Wallace archive, this time courtesy of Open Letters Monthly. Interesting stuff here on Dostoevsky and, er…”balls.”
More from the DFW Archives
Music To My Ears
Oh, to have cows and restaurants named after you: the life of the unusually-named NPR reporter.
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Get Off Get Paid
“It wasn’t our job to be aroused; it was our job to enhance literature meant to arouse our paying readers.” Kayleigh Hughes writes for Catapult about her year of editing e-erotica. You will learn myriad things from her account, such that publishers list “every sex act contained in every book, and the page on which those activities could be found, so that those in sales could properly categorize and organize the books for maximum success in the e-market.” And if your lust still requires further satiation, see also this account of writing the erotica itself.
Sheepoetry
“The idea was that the words would form a meaningful haiku – or ‘haik-ewe’ as Valerie called it – however they were viewed on the backs of the grazing sheep.”
Writer Casting Call
Filmmaker and author Morgan Spurlock posted a casting call for writers who have failed to write the next Great American Novel. Spurlock will choose a few lucky failures from the New York area to feature in an upcoming documentary series.
Ignoring Genre
In an interview with The Atlantic, Zone One author Colson Whitehead says the distinction between “literary” and “fantasy” genres “have no use for me in my day-to-day work experience.” Whitehead is just one of the recent high-profile authors to foray into genre fiction, however, as Kim Wright explored in a piece for us last month.
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Idolizing Hemingway
Robert Roper wonders whether or not Ernest Hemingway‘s death has “eclipsed his work.” Elsewhere, Melville House wonders whether or not the FBI had something to do with it. The author’s influence is as apparent today as ever before, though perhaps it’s not his death that endures, but rather his perceived masculine mystique.
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