Today’s long read begins like this: “In March 2010, Barry Duncan, master palindromist, was locked in an epic struggle with the alphabet.”
Master Palindromist
Sensitive Issues
You may have heard that Jess Row has a new book on shelves. The plot follows a man who undergoes a surgical procedure to change his race. In an interview at Guernica, the author talks to Grace Bello about writing and race, teaching in Hong Kong and what it means to grow up in Baltimore. You could also read the author’s Year in Reading entry.
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Conversations and Connections
Conversations and Connections is a Philadelphia conference offering editors, writers and publishers a chance to meet one another in a “comfortable, congenial environment.” The full day’s events are organized by Barrelhouse, and this year’s keynote speaker is The Odds author Stewart O’Nan.
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Book ’em, Danno!
Don’t forget to return your library books in Texas. This year an Austin man was arrested for failing to return a GED study guide that was three years overdue. Fines and arrest warrants are the new way to break even in towns with shrinking budgets. Other states, such as Iowa, Vermont, and Maine, are joining in.
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Muldoon’s Commencement Address
Paul Muldoon raised this season’s commencement bar with his address to Bennington College’s Writing Seminar graduates. At The Russian Samovar a few months ago, before reading from Maggot, he explained the phrase “cock a snook.”
Return to Sender
“A woman I did not know called me to help her with something I have always loved to do: write. Certainly it was fate, my involvement destined to be a seed for a fairy tale ending, I thought. I was wrong,” Scott Saalman writes about the moral challenges of agreeing to help someone with their writing at The Morning News.
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Well-Behaved Women Sometimes Make History
“When the corrective to women’s exclusion from history is to find a few suitable individuals to pluck out of the messy rush of life and achievement, and hold up for admiration, we forget that many of women’s most important historical achievements…have been the product of collaboration, community, and collective action.” For Slate, Joanna Scutts writes about recent spate of historical books about rebellious, misbehaved women, and who is left out of those stories. From our archives: a list of vile women in fiction.
There was a piece on this guy at the NPR radio show “Here and Now” today.
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/10/17/palindrome-madam-word