Sure, you could look ahead to the happenings of 2012, but that’s only half as fun as recapping Full Stop‘s 2011 “Best of the Blog” archives. (Part 2 here)
Best of Full Stop
“Eyes Without a Face”
John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats fame has a debut novel, Wolf in White Van, longlisted for the National Book Award, and Dwight Garner reviews the "strange and involving" novel for The New York Times.
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Audiobook Reviews by Kyle Minor
Cool Move Alert: Kyle Minor is reviewing audiobooks for Salon. His first piece is on Dave Eggers’ Hologram for the King, as read by Dion Graham (The Wire, Law and Order).
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Writing Heartbreak
Learn more about Hans Christian Andersen Award winner Cao Wenxuan. “China has given us so many heartbreaking stories. How can you avoid writing about them? I can’t sacrifice my life experience in order to make children happy.” Pair with Edan Lepucki’s piece on the grown-up counterparts to children’s stories.
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Stop the presses. Or, rather, restart the presses!
Owing to a successful Facebook campaign and some outcries from the Press’s authors, University of Missouri administrators have decided to reinstate the University of Missouri Press—which was recently shuttered—and “rehire” its editor in chief, Clair Wilcox. The goal now, according to the university system’s president, is to “reinvent [the press] in a more cost-effective technological model.”
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Where You From?
Last semester, at UC Riverside, the novelist Susan Straight began the class “Mixed-Race Literature and the American Experience” with a simple question: “How many of you are often asked, What are you?” In an essay about the class, she relates what they learned, which includes the observation that hair is weirdly important in America. (Related: The Millions published an essay by Straight on Toni Morrison's Sula.)
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