Thanks to Jane Friedman, the Virginia Quarterly Review is really blossoming of late when it comes to social media and increased web presence. Case in point: these once-a-week poem posters on their Facebook page. Extra case in point: the sort-of-not-so-secret Tumblr they’re working on!
Welcome to the Party, VQR!
Tuesday New Release Day: Moore; Li; Wilson; Stace; Harbach
Lorrie Moore, who we profiled yesterday, has a new story collection on shelves this week. Also out: Kinder Than Solitude by Yiyun Li; What’s Important is Feeling by Adam Wilson; Wonderkid by Wesley Stace; and MFA vs. NYC, a new essay collection (spun off from an n+1 piece) edited by Chad Harbach.
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Your Okay
Sick of getting corrected for tiny grammatical mistakes? Turns out you may not be a forgetful person after all. According to a cognitive psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, our brains have a tendency to fall into bad grammatical habits, even when we know the rules we’re trying to follow. In The Washington Post, Andrew Heisel investigates. You could also read Fiona Maazel on the specter of commercial grammar.
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Your Words Here
For years, one of the best ways to make a living as a writer (if you didn’t want to go into academia) was to become an ad copywriter. They heyday of print was flush with opportunities to make bank off billboards and publications. At The Paris Review Daily, Dan Piepenbring looks back on the ad copy of Fay Weldon, who gave the UK, among other things, the slogan “Vodka makes you drunker quicker.” (Related: Hope Mills on working for a creative agency.)
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Racist Tintin?
Does the Adventures of Tintin film conveniently avoid the comic books’ racist undertones?
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Two Gentlemen of Lebowski
Following in the footsteps of the recent Pride, Prejudice and Zombies, the Coen Brothers’ cult movie The Big Lebowski has received the Shakespeare treatment.
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Also Need a 4-Wheel Drive
Must be willing to perform “light, household maintenance.” Harry Bliss, an illustrator and cartoonist at The New Yorker, has purchased the former home of J.D. Salinger and will turn it into a retreat for one lucky cartoonist during February 2017. Pair with our review of J.D. Salinger: A Life, a comprehensive biography of the famously reclusive writer’s work.
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Planning for the End
“If Earth overheats and crops and fuel become scarce, guess what? I know good bartering supplies include tampons, mercury fillings, eyeglasses. One particularly anxious day I read instructions on how to cook on my woodstove—so in the early days of environmental apocalypse and culture collapse, my family will enjoy bygone potatoes roasted over hot coals and underdone loaves of bread.” Year in Reading alumna Megan Mayhew Bergman prepares herself for the apocalypse.
Grateful to have someone paying attention! Thanks so much. :-)