“Does ‘shithole’ have a hyphen in it?” Inside a copy editor’s brain.
House Style
The Real Housewives of Yoknapatawpha County
All of Faulkner's characters exist in the same county, so they probably ran into each other. What if there were a Real Housewives of Yoknapatawpha County? Nathan Pensky humorously imagines the feuds between As I Lay Dying's Addie Bundren and the protagonist of "A Rose for Emily" among others at McSweeney's.
“Trying to save Brooklyn”
At Salon, an interview with Year in Reading alum Gary Shteyngart, whose new memoir, Little Failure, came out last week. Shteyngart talks about the rise of a new “global fiction” and laments the fact that Russia “can’t seem to catch a break.”
The Joan Didion Documentary
There is going to be a documentary about Joan Didion. We repeat: a documentary about Joan Didion. This is not a drill. Watch the opening trailer and consider donating to the Kickstarter campaign here, and be sure to read our own Michael Borne's review of Blue Nights and S.J. Culver's Millions essay on "Getting Out: Escaping with Joan Didion."
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Thinking of pitching 33 1/3?
If you've ever thought you'd like to write a book on a beloved album for the 33 1/3 series you might find RJ Wheaton's reflections on the pitch process of definite interest. For the record, he wrote the one on Portishead's Dummy.
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You Can’t Watch (or Read) It All
In a piece reminiscent of Talk of the Nation's "You Can't Possibly Read It All, So Stop Trying" episode, A D Jameson tracks every film he's watched over a fifteen year span, and then discusses the data for HTMLGiant. Choice line (which could easily apply to literature, too): "The more you watch from the present day, the more garbage you’re bound to see—but your conclusions will be your own. Conversely, the further back you go, the more you’ll be guided by the opinions of others. (If nothing else, what’s available will be largely determined by what’s remained popular.)"
20 Writers to Watch
Another response to The New Yorker's 20 under 40 list, this time from Dzanc Books. Dzanc polled "nearly 100 independent publishers, agents, editors, bloggers and reviewers" and went through two rounds of voting to come up with 20 Writers to Watch: An Alternate List.