New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean sits down with L.A. Times Jacket Copy to talk about her new book Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. Orlean also discusses her dogs and her family’s recent move to Los Angeles.
Susan Orlean in Los Angeles
“Most boring meteorological significance”
Vanity Fair has an excerpt of Back to Blood in its latest issue. (Our own Nick Moran’s review of the book is worth reading before you proceed.)
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The Graphic Novel Warhorses
Alexander Chee posts the list of texts he used to teach his seminar on the graphic novel at Amherst – the graphic novel “warhorses,” as he calls them – and explains why they are the essential books for those interested in getting to know the form. (via The Rumpus)
Between Page and Screen
Between Page and Screen is a collaboration between book artist and poet Amaranth Borsuk and programmer Brad Bouse that experiments with the border between regular old reading and e-reading. The text is rendered in a code that requires the aid of a web cam to unlock its sentences. The work’s creators have been interviewed at imprint.
The Kite and the String
“Some people see things others cannot, and they are right, and we call them creative geniuses. Some people see things others cannot, and they are wrong, and we call them mentally ill.” The Atlantic has an excellent contribution to the age-old thesis that creativity and madness are inextricably linked–and tied, moreover, to mental illness–based in part on a sample of students at Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Pair with another essay on creativity and the “touch of madness” from our own archives.
Indie Road Trip
Something to do with those last remaining days of vacation: go on a national indie bookstore tour, as designed by Chin Music Press.
New from Neil Gaiman
Exciting news, Neil Gaiman fans! The author will release The View from the Cheap Seats, a collection of his non-fiction work, this May. For more Gaiman, check out our own Tess Malone’s review of The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
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Something Out of Something
BOMB Magazine is collaborating with Farrar, Straus & Giroux to commence their “Something Out of Something” design contest. Participating designers, writers, and artists are invited to “draw inspiration from the written work of Israeli short story writer and filmmaker Etgar Keret to create visual art of their own.” Winners will receive $500, a personalized copy of Suddenly, a Knock on the Door, and their artwork’s appearance in a Keret story or film. You can read the full details on the contest’s Tumblr and Facebook pages.
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