Newsflash: people in cold states drink a lot more than people in warm states.
The Thirsty North
Margaret Cho’s Advice
Margaret Cho’s advice for “hacking it?” Write what you think is funny, not what you think people will like.
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Graduating from Hogwarts
J.K. Rowling will be releasing her first novel for adults on Little, Brown and Co. Details are set to come out later this year.
Orange to withdraw sponsorship of woman’s fiction prize
Kate Mosse announced that Orange will no longer be sponsoring the prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction, given annually to the best work of English-language fiction written by a woman.
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No Phonies Here
“Salinger’s Holden Caulfield made a distinction between writers you would like to call on the phone and those you wouldn’t care to talk to at all. Teju Cole belongs to the former group.” Year in Reading alum Aleksandar Hemon interviews Teju Cole. If you can’t get enough of Cole, we interviewed him, too.
Dear Diary
Earlier this week, our own Thomas Beckwith reported on the Hermione/Ron scandal. Now, Mallory Ortberg has penned Ron Weasley’s secret diary at The Toast. “I don’t want to die. I’ve never even seen a movie. Seventeen years old and I’ve never seen a movie and I still don’t know what math is.” No wonder why J.K. Rowling wanted Hermione to end up with Harry.
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Edwidge Danticat on Earthquake in Haiti
Video of Haitian American novelist Edwidge Danticat talking about the earthquake in Haiti at Democracy Now.
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The Philosopher’s Lunch
“Another example of Chomsky humour: he calls his assistant’s dog, ‘Cat.'” Financial Times sits down for a meal with linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky.