Helen DeWitt talks to Bookforum about the origins of her long (as in really long!)-awaited second novel, Lightning Rods.
An Interview With Helen DeWitt
Finnegans Punk
Forget One Direction. Meet the little known boy band made up of John Cage, James Joyce, and Joey Ramone. Cage composed a song based on Joyce's Finnegans Wake called "The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs," which Ramone later sang to haunting effect.
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Goodreads launches “Ask the Author” feature
Goodreads has launched a new Ask the Author feature, allowing readers to ask the likes of Margaret Atwood, Khaled Hosseini, and Jesmyn Ward questions “about the new worlds, ideas, and people they’ve discovered in books.”
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Seeing Red
Wouldn't it be nice if your brain just went ahead and created that pesky simile for you? For individuals suffering with synesthesia (a neurological disorder in which one sense is "cross-wired" with another, such as seeing the color red or hearing a sour taste) the brain does just that. Here's a piece from Electric Literature that takes a look at synesthesia, substances, and seeing the world askew.
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Arthur Phillips, Still Writing
This thoroughly entertaining conversation between Robert Birnbaum and Arthur Phillips is not to be missed. Topics include faking Shakespeare, beagles, being anti-social in Brooklyn, pilates, and writing for a living.
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Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Law
The newest issue of Granta features some seriously captivating work, like this poem by Juliana Spahr and this story by Lorna Gibb, among many others. This “Possession” issue pairs well with an essay by our own Lydia Kiesling on possessing one’s own words and the narrative potential of leaked emails.
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“I’ve escorted two e-partners to the edge of the grave”
Pulitzer winner Tony Horwitz describes – in incredibly depressing fashion – his experience publishing Boom, a digital short representing his first foray into “the brave new world” of digital publishing. Two takeaways for aspiring writers that are not explicitly mentioned, however: don’t write without a contract, and be sure to use an agent from the get-go.
Canonical Comics
The world's great literature as comics and visuals. Though, as Steven Heller points out in The Atlantic, defining the canon is a contentious task, comics or no.
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RIP Joe Frazier
The sports world lost a legend this week in Joe Frazier. In honor of Smokin' Joe's indelible mark on the sport of boxing, Byliner has gathered thirteen great stories on the sweet science. Also worth reading is George Plimpton's classic Sports Illustrated story on the Frazier vs. George Foreman fight in Kingston.
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