Hachette Audio has composed a 56-hour long audiobook version of Infinite Jest. In case you’re wondering: no, they don’t read the endnotes; they’re provided as a “bonus PDF.” Also, The Huffington Post gathered two audio excerpts.
Got Two and a Half Days to Kill?
W.S. Merwin, Surrounded by Green
A. Hope Jahren remembers W.S. Merwin with an evocative description of visiting the Merwin Conservancy, an island filled with trees Merwin planted himself.
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Holiday OuLiPo
This holiday season, show a little restraint. Write a short short that uses each word only once, and email it to [email protected] by December 31 at midnight for your chance to win Electric Literature vol. 1 and be published on their blog, The Outlet. Further details available here.
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Plea of Innocence
Recommended Reading: On the ethics of self-publishing or: Can a convicted serial killer publish his version of the story?
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“It is true that if there exists a ‘writer’s writer,’ [George] Saunders is the guy”
Joel Lovell profiles George Saunders for The New York Times, and he gives a killer endorsement for Saunders’s latest book, Tenth of December. The author’s collection from thirteen years ago, Pastoralia, was picked on our site as being among the “Best of the Millennium.”
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Small Range
To the debate over whether or not male writers have trouble creating realistic female characters, we can add the opinion of Ester Bloom, who argues at The Hairpin that most male writers mold their female characters according to four archetypes: the virgin, the whore, the mother and the bitch.
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Song of Herself
Does she contradict herself? Very well, then she contradicts herself, she is large, she contains multitudes! Is Sarah Palin the Walt Whitman of Wasilla?
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3 Quarks Daily Arts and Literature Prize
Attention! 3 Quarks Daily has announced its 4th annual prize for arts and literature online writing, to be judged by novelist Mohsin Hamid. Articles from The Millions writers have won before (a piece from Lydia Kiesling in 2010 and another from Edan Lepucki in 2011) and we’d love to keep that tradition going. Nominations can be posted in the comments of the announcement, so please recommend any Millions writing you have enjoyed since March of last year. And to all of our guest contributors out there, be sure to nominate your Millions pieces!