The Academy of American Poets is conducting six-question interviews with six different poets in anticipation of the 2012 Poets Forum (October 18-20). Over at BOMB, you can read the first installment, which features Mary Jo Bang.
“There are myriad roles for poets”
The Vampire Diaries
"Charles Dickens had orphanages and workhouses, the Brontë sisters had the wild moors, and modern writers have high school." So begins L.A. Times television critic Mary McNamara's take on The Vampire Diaries, the CW's answer to Twilight (premiering tonight at 8). The show is loosely based on L.J. Smith's books of the same name and McNamara gives it a qualified thumbs up. She concludes that this latest addition to the vampire canon is "pure froth, but it is very welcome froth, especially in a genre that seems sometimes in danger of taking itself a little too seriously."
Never Say Never
We are all Beliebers: the London Review of Books reviews The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, whose author, Teddy Wayne, told us last month that "it misses the point to discard fiction simply because it’s about social media or the celebrity-gossip machine and not Iraq or divorce."
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A primer on the vast, ever-expanding universe of smut
If 50 Shades of Grey is not quite up your alley but you're looking to read more shameless smut, then you're in luck. New York magazine has compiled a field guide for the trepidatious romance reader. And there are infographics!
Authors Helping Authors
Debut author Maya Sloan writes a charming and heartfelt blog post about dressing up as a clown for Charles Bock's Literary Rent Party.
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