Lydia Millet’s most recent novel, Magnificence, is the third in a trilogy, and a reminder of what a significant body of work she’s been building over the last decade. The Point offers the best overview of that work you’re likely to find anywhere. Millet’s “equal parts” Ben Marcus and Jonathan Franzen, writes Tom Dibblee, “but really she’s her own thing.”
Lydia Millet, Dark Princess of Love
Sleep Indulgence and Piñata Effigies
“BEST FEATURE: If you glance at the word it looks like it says ‘tiny axe’ which sounds very cute. It makes me picture a tiny lumberjack. WORST FEATURE: Anxiety can turn a pleasant afternoon into a sweat-drenched pair of slacks that are hard to explain.” Ted Wilson reviews anxiety (spoiler alert: it only gets one star out of five) for Electric Literature.
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The Drama of Rejection
We’ve all been rejected; after all, we’re writers. Yet sometimes it’s nice to know someone has it worse than you. With that in mind, New Hampshire Public Radio presents dramatic readings of famous rejection letters. Pair with: Our ask a writing teacher on rejection from various literary journals.
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Roger Angell on the Triple Play
Even those who detest the sport can feel the joys of reading Roger Angell’s baseball writing. Case in point: his latest dispatch, in which he remarks on a recent triple play by saying, “What’s great about [triple plays] isn’t really their scarcity but the fact that they beautifully illustrate the invisible force that hovers about each pitch and play and inning and game in this pausing, staccato, and inexorably accruing pastime: the laws of chance.”
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Yaa Gyasi on the Inevitable Risk of Living
Yaa Gyasi discusses the theme of risk in her latest novel, Transcendent Kingdom, and how it is necessary in both pleasure and pain.
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Feeling Lonely Tonight?
Jeff Ragsdale (Jeff, One Lonely Guy) produced, shot and edited an “immersion documentary” in which he accompanied Canadian escorts on hundreds of calls over a span of several months. The half-hour film is entitled “30 Nights with a Call Girl.” Millions readers may recall Ragsdale’s work from its mention in our own Sonya Chung’s essay “On Loneliness.”
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