Here’s a potential remedy for your writer’s block or attention deficit issues: take a hike in the woods. (Maybe even take a hike while reading a book.)
Wild Inspiration
Dog Whispering
“He says you should choose a book narrated by a person of the same gender as their primary master, played at average volume on an in-home listening device such as the Alexa-driven Echo device.” Cesar Milan is curating a list of titles for Amazon’s new Audible for Dogs initiative, reports USA Today. On the list so far: Pride and Prejudice, The Wind in the Willows, and Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (via Book Riot).
Ping-ping-ping
Back in July, Evan Allgood interviewed Alina Simone for The Millions. The writer and indie rocker talked about her new book and the phenomenon of “gilded turds” in the art world. Now, at Full-Stop, Jordan Kisner conducts his own interview with Simone, who tells him that “we’re in this age where every three seconds you’re getting pinged by some weird ‘ask’ that is almost like an invitation to a new life.”
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Conversations & Connections, 2013
Are you a writer in the Philadelphia area? Are you looking for “a comfortable, congenial environment where you can meet other writers, editors and publishers?” If you answered yes to both of these questions, then this September’s Barrelhouse Conversations & Connections conference will be right up your alley. This year’s keynote speaker will be Familiar author J. Robert Lennon.
A Story in Parts
“On the way home, the girl did not notice the color of the sky or the shape of the night, as she was too busy questioning why there were no secrets anymore.” As part of its Recommended Reading series, Electric Literature offers a special seven-part serial by Joe Meno. “Star Witness” tells the story of a young woman in a small southern town who spends the night searching for a missing local girl, and we can’t wait to read the next six installments. Pair with our own Edan Lepucki‘s profile of Meno from a few years back: “[he] seems more than willing to try new things in his work, to stretch his expectations of what he can do as a writer, and what a book can be.”
Every height of brow
Putting aside for a moment the racist phrenological roots of the terms “highbrow” and “lowbrow,” here’s an interesting conversation on what the difference between them means for literature now. For a historical take, check out this graphic from a 1949 edition of LIFE magazine, which taught me a real gentleman wears fuzzy tweed, and iceberg lettuce is never in style.
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Rolling Readers
“They don’t want to get off the bus because they wanted to keep listening.” A Texas library system has outfitted a handful of public school buses with wi-fi access and digital audiobooks, reports The Digital Reader. Pair with this celebration of perambulatory reading.
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