Over on the Atlantic there’s a compendium of cheeky marginalia Monks and their scribes have scribbled into gilded manuscripts, courtesey of Lapham’s Quarterly.
Writing is excessive drudgery.
Prank Fodder
With April Fool’s Day approaching, it’s a good time to wonder: what kinds of horrible things will you do to the people you love? At the OUP’s blog, a list of great pranks for inspiration.
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Type Writer Fetish
Want to make your writing more dramatic? Try using a typewriter. Tom Hanks professes his love for typewriters in The New York Times. “Everything you type on a typewriter sounds grand, the words forming in mini-explosions of SHOOK SHOOK SHOOK. A thank-you note resonates with the same heft as a literary masterpiece,” he writes. Pair with: A St. Louis man placed typewriters around the city in hopes that residents will share their stories.
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Get Bent, Collier County.
The MFA program at Florida Atlantic University launched Swamp Ape Review, a new national online literary journal. For their first print issue, which is set to publish next year, they’re accepting submissions from writers in South Florida, such as Martin, St. Lucie, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties. For a nice primer on the journal’s namesake (or, rather, its alias), I direct your attentions to Bill Kearney.
Birnbaum and Brooks
Robert Birnbaum sits down with Pulitzer-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks to discuss Australian literature, Harvard’s (neglected) charter to educate American Indians, and those residents of Martha’s Vineyard who say no to Chardonnay.
Art of Seduction
Last week, Erin Fortenberry reviewed Walter Kirn’s Blood Will Out for The Millions, writing that the events in the book were partly centered on Kirn himself. Now, in the Times, Janet Maslin reads the book, which struck her as “primarily a tale of seduction.”
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The Lost City of Atlantic
“The Boardwalk’s kitsch, the kitsch of Trump’s former properties along the Boardwalk, merely reinforce how retro a mogul the candidate is: a throwback who doesn’t care he’s a throwback, who’s barely aware he is, dressed to impress in a padded Brioni suit and a tie with a scrotum-sized knot.” Novelist Joshua Cohen takes one last trip (maybe?) to the Atlantic City of his youth for n+1. Related: Turns out Cohen’s not the only novelist who’s worked as a casino dealer.
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Russell Hoban Dies at 86
Russell Hoban, a prolific author who created Frances, a girl who appeared in the guise of a badger in seven books for children (Bedtime was always my favorite), died on Tuesday in London. He was 86.