Who Pays Blogs
Tuesday New Release Day: Strout, Lytal
A pair of books featured in our Great 2013 Book Preview hit shelves today: Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout’s fourth novel, The Burgess Boys, as well as Benjamin Lytal’s A Map of Tulsa.
Twitter Bird Flu
Hypochondriacs rejoice! A team of scientists from the University of Rochester is working on a “machine-based algorithm” in the same vein as Google Flu Trends—but this time based on Twitter and smart phone data—to predict, with about 90% accuracy, when you’ll next get sick.
“Poetry is like a pinch, a twist of the skin”
Our own Nick Ripatrazone has been on a roll lately. Apart from the many articles he’s written for The Millions, he’s got a forthcoming collection of short fiction that includes works he published in Esquire and The Kenyon Review. He also published a new poem, “South Africa, 1988,” at The Nervous Breakdown, which you can read in conjunction with his self-interview.
Black Bodies Online
“I couldn’t help but feel that technology had circled back to some of its earliest purposes: broadcasting anti-black violence as widely as possible, as both entertainment and warning.” Our own Ismail Muhammad writes for Real Life about the tension between bearing witness and perpetuating paradigms of white supremacy while on the web. And if you haven’t yet read it, do spend some time with this review of Nate Marshall‘s Wild Hundreds, which provides some fortification.
The Signature of Style
“They say ‘kill your darlings,’ but I think darlings are your voice — your favorite parts, the parts you’d admire even if you didn’t write them. Why destroy what you love? If you feel that strongly about something you’ve written, pay attention!” Elisa Gabbert pens Electric Literature‘s “Blunt Instrument” column, which this month involves how to find one’s style as a writer. And for more scrivening advice, see our own columnists Swarm & Spark on the best way to seek feedback on your work,sending a memoir into the world, and whether writing a novel will jeopardize your mental health.
New Katherine Mansfield Story Found
While thumbing through the archives at King’s College, a graduate student uncovered four previously unknown stories by Katherine Mansfield.
Tuesday New Release Day: Fuentes, Lee, Klaussmann, Netzer, Toutonghi
New this week is Carlos Fuentes’ vampire tale set in Mexico City, Vlad. Also out are The Collective by Don Lee, Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann, Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer, and Evel Knievel Days by Pauls Toutonghi, who last year introduced us to six Egyptian writers as the world watched the Egyptian revolution.