Sundog Lit is putting together their first theme issue, and it’s going to be all about “Games” of all types: video games, baseball games, Game of Thrones, etc… Fittingly, their guest editor for this issue will be Level End author Brian Oliu. Submission deadline is June 1st. If you need a little inspiration, you should check out Adrienne LaFrance’s take on MoMA’s video games exhibit.
Sundog Lit’s Games Issue
Contemporary Fiction and the Internet
"The internet has altered our lives in ways television never did or could, but mainstream literary novelists – by which I mean writers who specialize in realistic, character-based narratives – have mostly shied away from writing about this, perhaps hoping that, like TV, it could be safely ignored." Laura Miller examines how contemporary novels are coming to terms with the internet.
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Literary Gamers
Nabokov played (and frequently wrote about) chess; J.K. Rowling plays Minecraft, though it has yet to appear in any kind of Harry Potter spin-off. And why shouldn't she? After all, "there’s a long tradition of other authors turning to a variety of such games – mostly as light relief from their vocation, but also sometimes finding writerly inspiration."
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And Smoke Signals
As the world knows, letter writing is dead, killed by the popularity of email. However, before email killed letters, the telephone killed them, as did the typewriter, the telegraph and the adhesive postage stamp. (h/t Arts and Letters Daily)
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Flavorwire’s Top 10 Bookstores in the United States
Flavorwire presents a list of its ten favorite bookstores in the United States and requests that you "buy something fer crissakes."
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The Politics of Naming
Things you can learn about Teddy Wayne from his essay in the New York Times Book Review: one, his first name is Derek; two, he believes the modern lit world is crazy for guys named Jonathan; and three, he once considered using the pen name D.T. Wayne. (For more, you could go read our interview, or else check out our review of his latest novel.)
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The Cartoon Curator
Didn't find the latest New Yorker cartoon funny? Take it up with The New Yorker's cartoon editor, Bob Mankoff, who discusses the magazine's "idea drawings" and humor in his TED talk, Anatomy of a New Yorker Cartoon. Bonus: check out Mankoff's favorite New Yorker cartoons.
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