McSweeney’s is accepting entries for their 3rd Annual Column Contest.
McSweeney’s Column Contest
An Excerpt from the New Knausgaard
Here’s one for all you Knausgaard fans: Newsday has a short excerpt from My Struggle: Book Three. (Related: if you’re not yet a Knausgaard fan, allow Jonathan Callahan to extend an invitation to the club.)
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How Should an Interview Be?
My Millions social media teammate Emily M. Keeler is probably too humble to write a Curiosity about her kickass interview with Sheila Heti. But not I, dear readers! Not I.
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Secret Space
Recommended Reading: Over at Aeon, Tiffany Jenkins writes about the importance of secrets for a child’s development and in children’s literature.
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Fact-checking Steinbeck
As John Steinbeck’s classic Travels With Charley nears the half-century mark, a writer has retraced the author’s cross-country journey and come to the conclusion that the resulting book was full of inaccuracies and outright fabrications. The journalist Bill Steigerwald, whose article appears in the current issue of the libertarian quarterly Reason, says he didn’t set out to trash the Nobel laureate. “As a libertarian, I kind of liked the old guy,” Steigerwald tells the New York Times. “He liked guns; he liked property rights.”
Poetic Prayer
“I’m interested in character. I’m especially interested in how language—story, memory, names, word choice—reflects and reveals character. The language of the Catholic Church—the liturgy, the prayer, the gospels—was in many ways my first poetry. ” Year in Reading alumna Alice McDermott discusses her short story, “These Short, Dark Days,” published in the latest The New Yorker.
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The Politics of Naming
Things you can learn about Teddy Wayne from his essay in the New York Times Book Review: one, his first name is Derek; two, he believes the modern lit world is crazy for guys named Jonathan; and three, he once considered using the pen name D.T. Wayne. (For more, you could go read our interview, or else check out our review of his latest novel.)
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Lucy Ellmann’s 45-Hour Audiobook
Actress Stephanie Ellyne narrates the audiobook version of Lucy Ellmann's Ducks, Newburyport, which spans 45 hours and 34 minutes.
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