Granta‘s “Horror” issue was published just in time for Halloween, and I can’t think of a better way to whet your appetite than to read Daniel Alarcón‘s “The Ground Floor.”
Granta’s Horror Issue
Use It Or Lose It
At least two people were not pleased with John Jeremiah Sullivan’s recent cover story in the New York Times Magazine. In a letter to the New York Observer (and an expanded post on Google+), Susannah McCormick – daughter of renowned music historian Robert “Mack” McCormick – alleges that Sullivan and his research assistant “glibly” stole her father’s research in an act of “quasi theft.” In his response, Sullivan asserts that, “by hiding L. V. Thomas’s voice, by refusing for over half a century to credit or even so much as name the two singers who created those recordings while they or their contemporaries were alive, Mack McCormick committed a theft—through negligence or writer’s block or whatever reasons of his own—far graver than my citation of interviews L.V. granted him decades ago.”
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Borders to Close
It’s official: Borders has announced it will begin liquidating its 399 bookstores this week. Store closures could begin as early as this Friday and will continue through September, according to the Times.
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FLOW
Year in Reading alum Michele Filgate interviews Dawn Finley, one of the people behind the Feminist Library on Wheels (F.L.O.W.) in Los Angeles.
Earthsea Continues
One of Ursula K. Le Guin’s digital-only stories will be published for the first time in a 50th anniversary omnibus edition of The Tales of Earthsea.
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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.
Haiti’s Resilience: A Literary List
Yesterday marked eight years since a devastating earthquake struck Haiti and a few days ago Trump put the country back in the news (but not in an reflective or uplifting way). Looking to learn more about Haiti sans racist rhetoric? The New York Times has “three books by Haitian writers that provide insight into the country’s history of struggle and resistance.” Find the list here.