Andrew Ervin interviewed Matt Bell for Tin House. Bell’s forthcoming novel In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and Woods will come out this summer. (Excerpt) It’s a book that was at least partially enhanced by Bell’s sense of “competition … of a useful kind” with his friend Robert Kloss. “I was so blown away [by Alligators of Abraham],” Bell admits, “that I can remember having to resist putting down his first novel to go make mine better.”
Matt Bell on Creative Competition
Most Anticipated Addenda
Conversational Reading has put together its own “most anticipated” books list that has some overlap with our own. It’s also worth noting that the trend of posthumous publication noted in our Most Anticipated introduction, was plumbed with considerably more depth at The Quarterly Conversation last year.
Title Games
Penguin is celebrating its eightieth anniversary this year. How well do you know its classic book covers? At The Telegraph, a quiz on the better-known titles in its library. You could also look back on one of our book cover battles.
Teju’s Twitter
Yesterday, our own Elizabeth Minkel pondered if Twitter fiction could be real art. She cited Teju Cole, a literary Twitter master, but what does he have to say about how Twitter affects his writing? “My memory is worse than it was a few years ago, but I hope that my ability to write a good sentence has improved,” he told The New York Times.
Fetishized rituals
Robert McCrum’s got a question for you, and I’m interested to know the answer, too. Who are the naked writers? My first thought was perhaps Truman Capote, because he wrote so often from bed, but that’s not exactly strong evidence. Anyway, here are some writers in their underpants.
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