Philip Roth, who just authorized Blake Bailey to be his official biographer, has written an “Open Letter to Wikipedia” wherein the author states his grievance with the site’s entry for his novel The Human Stain. Related: can we just give this dude the Nobel already?
Philip Roth v. Wikipedia
An Issue of Perspective
Sure, male journalists are generally not the best when it comes to writing about women, but things have gotten better in the last few years, right? Maybe not.
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My hangovers are scheduled a year in advance.
John Waters on parents, aging, routine, gangsta rap, and WikiLeaks.
Tuesday New Release Day: Smith; Noah; Sealy; Wideman; Hopler; Cash
Out this week: Swing Time by Zadie Smith; Born a Crime by Trevor Noah; The China Sketchbook by I. Allen Sealy; Writing to Save a Life by John Edgar Wideman; The Abridged History of Rainfall by Jay Hopler; and Forever Words by the late Johnny Cash. For more on these and other new titles, go read our latest fiction and nonfiction book previews.
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Confessing / Confiding
"I wanted to offer my students an alternative to the purely confessional mode. I wanted them to write about themselves without falling into a paralyzingly portentous tone. I wanted more humor in their work, more complexity, more detail, more balance—more good writing. I wanted fewer italicized passages, less use of the breathless present tense. I wanted no more tears in the workshop, no more embarrassing scenes." Emily Fox Gordon writes about trauma narratives in the classroom, the trouble with writing as therapy, and the key differences between confessing and confiding in an essay for The American Scholar.
A Bookish Father’s Day
Looking for the perfect book for Father's Day, but didn't find quite what you were looking for in our list? Lit Hub has some supplemental titles you might be interested in.