M. Evelina Galang, author of Her Wild American Self and current director of the University of Miami’s MFA Creative Writing Program, is featured in the latest issue of Kartika Review, “a national Asian/Pacific Islander American literary arts journal.” You can read the entire Fall 2011 issue for free.
Kartika Review
First Winners of the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Fiction and Nonfiction Announced
This past Sunday the American Library Association gave out the first Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction to Robert K. Massie’s Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman and Anne Enright’s The Forgotten Waltz. Also be sure to check out our interview with Enright.
Not-Paper Planes
We’re not supposed to call it a hypertext, but when you’ve got some time, try playing around with Paul La Farge‘s website for Luminous Airplanes – which will eventually grow to encompass three times as much material as the print edition of the book.
Things to Be Cognizant Of
All of us have particular words that we use a little too often. Writers tend to be embarrassed about their predilections for certain turns of phrase. At Slate, Matthew J.X. Malady reacts to the news that he uses iteration too much, and delves into the ways our verbal habits spread to others.
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Staying Alive
Amidst all the sad tales of great bookstores going under, the Strand remains a fixture of the New York lit scene. At Vulture, Chris Bonanos explores the many reasons why the Strand is still afloat, among them the store’s increasing sales of new books. You could also read our own Janet Potter on her lifelong infatuation with bookstores.
Books Nobody Reads
Maybe nobody read your first, or last, most recent or only book, but writer, take heart: nobody read the work of these 10 great authors either.
Notes from Eula Biss
“I’m not convinced that the questions that have been raised for me by the writing I love the most could be answered by the authors themselves.” A new interview with Eula Biss, author of Notes from No Man’s Land, is up on NEA’s Art Works Blog.
The Great Vietnamese Novel(s)
“The literature by Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Americans is out there for anyone who knows how to use Google. But so many here and abroad would rather not know, or when a new Vietnamese author is published, would prefer to say, ‘At last! A voice for the Vietnamese!’ In fact, there are so many voices, for the Vietnamese people are very loud.” Pulitzer Prize winner and Year in Reading alumnus Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Sympathizer) writes in The New York Times about the diversity of Vietnamese writing, too often ignored in favor of war narratives and the voices of American veterans. (For an incredible syllabus of books to fill in the gaps, see the middle of his piece.)
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