A few weeks ago, Benjamin Hale wrote an article for us about the trivialities and happenstance associated with publishing prizes. His point was that legacy was more important than short-lived fame. In a way, his piece is nicely supplemented by Tom Bissell’s essay on the luck and chance necessary to attain literary success.
Temper That Ego. You Need Luck As Well.
Gwendolyn Brooks’s Archives Headed to Urbana-Champaign
The literary archives of Gwendolyn Brooks – the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize – are headed to the University of Illinois Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The haul amounts to more than “150 boxes stuffed with manuscripts, drafts, revisions, correspondence, scrapbooks, clippings, homemade chapbooks in which Brooks neatly handwrote her earliest (unpublished) poems, and heavy bronze awards ensconced in velvet-lined boxes collected later in her career.”
The Case of the Aching Wallet
We’ve published a fair number of articles on the issue of finance and employment in a writer’s life. In general, writers assume that the ideal source of income, at least as far as it concerns their own careers, is one that leaves them free of worries and blessed with ample time. In the latest Bookends, Mohsin Hamid and Rivka Galchen tackle a more existential question — do money woes inspire writers to greater heights of creativity?
Powerhouse
Big news in the publishing world: Penguin and Random House have announced their decision to merge.
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Chabon: Friend to the Geeks
You may not know this, but Michael Chabon co-wrote the script for Disney’s latest blockbuster, Shirtless Martian Tim Riggins John Carter. In an interview with Wired, Chabon defends genre-writing, and also talks about his sci-fi influences.
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De Sangue
Blood-Drenched Beard, a new novel by Daniel Galera, is poised to spark a newfound interest in Brazilian literature abroad, argues Chris Frey. In The Globe and Mail, he writes that Galera has forged an original voice, one recalling Borges and Murakami but still distinctly his own. For more on the book, you could read our review.
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Trump, a Fable
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Magic: The Gathering as Literature
A D Jameson has been writing daily updates about Magic: The Gathering as literature. Here’s part one of his HTMLGiant series. (And here’s part two, and here’s part three.)
Recent essay? “Unflowered Aloes” is twelve years old and worth reading to the very end.
Good catch. I think I’d meant to type “recently unlocked.”