Kirk Curnutt takes readers on a tour of of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s oft-neglected commercial short fiction. Fitzgerald, after all, “produced 160 short stories [in his life],” writes Curnutt, “earning a total of $241,453 off the genre — more than $3 million in today’s dollars.” Yet the author didn’t think highly of the work, and even referred to himself as an “old whore” because he wouldn’t quit.
In Which F. Scott Fitzgerald Gets Compared to The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson
Too Crazy to Believe
“Any day’s news supplies plots so fantastic that most make-believe story lines pale in comparison.” Author John Altman in the LA Times about the difficulty of writing fiction during Trump’s presidency. “My current novel-in-progress concerns North Korea,” writes Altman, “and each day’s headlines endanger its premise. But too much second-guessing hobbles a writer. One can only take a deep breath, remind oneself that war with North Korea would jeopardize much more than a humble spy thriller, and forge ahead, hoping for the best.”
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NaNoWriMo Author Scores Big
Erin Morgenstern‘s debut novel The Night Circus went from National Novel Writing Month project to 6-figure book advance after being rejected by more than 30 agents.
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WTF Amazon?!
Need a good way to start your Monday? Try browsing a repository of the craziest, most confusing things Amazon has on offer.
Brief Likenesses
“Armand’s characters all seem both hugely present and in life’s juice and simultaneously dead, as if rent of brain, nerves, chest, stomach, intestines … Without gods and devils these patients feel that only fire can save them, existing eternally unless burned away.” Australian novelist Louis Armand’s newest, Abacus, is reviewed by Richard Marshall at 3:AM Magazine.
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A writer by any other name…
Using pen names has been a common practice for, well, a very long time. George Eliot is a nom de plume, as are George Orwell and George Sand. Though not a George, journalist Sarah Hall chose to publish her fiction under a different name. She writes for The Guardian about this decision, the history of the pen name, and the reasons authors continue to use them.
A Literary Wake
In Austin, the Harry Ransom Center and American Short Fiction are hosting a tribute event for J.D. Salinger that will include readings by Elizabeth Crane, Nick Flynn, Amelia Gray, Elizabeth McCracken, ZZ Packer, and John Pipkin.
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Apologizing to Strangers
For Edward Hirsch, poems tell you things about people's deep interiority that can be difficult to square with their public personae when you meet them.
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