What 2012 looks like, viewed from the perspective of science fiction. Where we are going, viewed from the perspective of science fiction. Where we have been, viewed from the perspective of science reality: Mars.
Science Fictions and Realities.
Karen Russell, Short Story Sorcerer
A master of the short story, Karen Russell discusses supernatural metaphors for motherhood, lonely mutants, and the pleasures of world-building.
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Spillman’s Memoir
Recommended Reading: Rob Spillman, editor of Tin House, speaks with the LA Times about his new memoir, All Tomorrow’s Parties. Spillman was featured in our piece on literary editors’ favorite issues of their magazines.
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Ask Us Anything: Swarm & Spark
Swarm and Spark, a new column at The Millions, invites you to write with your questions about publishing, the literary life, or writing. The column is written by two anonymous figures: a NYC editor with years in the industry and an MFA professor at a long-established program. Ask anything that has plagued, confounded, pleased or troubled you about your life in and around literature and you may be answered, always with respect: your question will be treated as anonymous as well. Send your true confessions, complaints and queries to [email protected].
Rowling on “the Literati.”
Does The Silkworm, which came out last week, give readers insight into how its author, Robert Galbraith – er, J.K. Rowling – feels about the publishing community? Elizabeth Winkler takes a look.
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Death of a Library
No matter what you think of the bookish offspring of the OED’s word of the year, you should know that Neil Gaiman gave the term “shelfie” some more press. While moving out of his house, the author took a “tragic shelfie,” aka a picture of his books packed away in boxes. (Related: our own Tess Malone reviewed Gaiman’s latest book.) (h/t The Paris Review)
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“The history of sex is also a literary history.”
We knew this day would come. A review of Fifty Shades of Grey appears in The Los Angeles Review of Books. Your move, Robert Silvers.
Shelley’s Snail Mail
Most of our internet browsing results in wasted time and too many cat videos, but Nora Crook stumbled upon Mary Shelley’s unpublished letters while researching an obscure 19th-century novelist. In the letters, which range from 1831-49, Shelley fawns over her son and even discusses a 3 a.m. trip to her hairdresser when she got a ticket to the coronation of William IV in 1831. The letters will be published soon in The Keats-Shelley Journal.
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True Crime, True Empathy
Why are women the primary consumers of true crime literature while an overwhelming majority of the genre showcases violence towards women? Over at Hazlitt, Casey Johnston has a few ideas about this seemingly irreconcilable paradox. Here is a complementary piece by Ujala Sehgal for The Millions on the female True Detectives of literature.