Elissa Bassist took an intro improv class and used what she learned to create some rules for writing funny fiction. (Thanks, Rachel)
What Improv Can Teach You about Writing Humor
Not for Publication
Here’s a fact that’s either very surprising or not surprising at all: Samuel Beckett didn’t want his letters to see the light of day. He once wrote to Barney Rosset that he didn’t care for “the ventilation of private documents.” Despite this disinclination, his third volume of letters comes out this week, and it includes, as detailed by John Banville in a review for The Irish Times, a letter in which Beckett asks that none of his plays be produced in Ireland. Pair with: our own Matt Seidel on Beckett’s “Echo’s Bones.”
Jonathan Franzen New Yorker Article
Jonathan Franzen writes of Robinson Crusoe, solitude, and David Foster Wallace in his new article from The New Yorker – but you’ll have to like their Facebook page to read it.
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Gorey and Macabre
Eve Bowen takes a trip to “Gorey Preserved,” an exhibition of “nearly every edition of every work published by [Edward] Gorey, in addition to illustrations for dust jackets and magazines, etchings, posters, and design ephemera,” on display at Columbia University until August 10th. Those unable to attend need not fret—Bowen walk readers through a history of the prolific illustrator’s work and includes plenty of links to his drawings online.
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Literary Rivalries Revisited
Lulah Ellender reflects on literary rivalries throughout history, including Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, Gore Vidal and Truman Capote, and more.
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“Happiness was born a twin.”
Robert and Richard Kalich are identical twins, and their family had the misfortune of having them both grow up to be writers.
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