Jeff Sharlet had a challenge for his creative nonfiction students at Dartmouth College. Sensing that journalism had become too “dull,” too mired in a “culture of professionalism” divided “between reporting and ‘storytelling,’” Sharlet asked his students who didn’t “know [any] better” to create a magazine of their own. The result, 40 Towns, embraces “the right conditions” of literary creation – immersion, journalism, regionalism and “a term of revision” – to present a “collection of documents, artifacts of real life” about the Upper Valley.
40 Towns, An Experiment in Literary Journalism
The Translator’s Tale
We don't often stop to think about the art of literary translation, but translator Margaret Jull Costa examines the field in her Times Literary Supplement essay on The Cahiers Series. "What these fascinating Cahiers offer is an insight into what literary translators actually do, as well as fuel for the endless debate about what we mean when we talk about 'faithful' translation."
Self Publishing Textbooks
A Minnesota high school is saving money on textbooks... by writing its own.
A.S. Byatt on Feministing
Chloe Angyal briefly interviews A.S. Byatt at Feministing. Byatt will be reading in New York City this Thursday.
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An Orphaned Bear
"He sat on a shelf of our one-roomed apartment for a while, and then one day when I was sitting in front of my typewriter staring at a blank sheet of paper wondering what to write, I idly tapped out the words 'Mr. and Mrs. Brown first met Paddington on a railway platform. In fact, that was how he came to have such an unusual name for a bear, for Paddington was the name of the station.' It was a simple act, and in terms of deathless prose, not exactly earth shattering, but it was to change my life considerably. ... Without intending it, I had become a children's author." Michael Bond, creator of the Paddington Bear series, has died at 91, reports NPR. We'd like to think that Bond might have appreciated our own Jacob Lambert's series, "Are Picture Books Leading Children Astray?" – in particular this entry questioning the moral fiber of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.
Literary Disco
Literary Disco, a podcast hosted by Julia Pistell, Tod Goldberg, and Rider Strong (yeah! Sean from Boy Meets World!) is just great. In the most recent installment the hosts revisit their bookshelves and describe their new findings from rereading some faves, including Strong's overwhelming reaction to T.C. Boyle's author photo.
Tuesday New Release Day: Millhauser, Matar, Shakar, Fuller, Chez Panisse
Steven Millhauser's new collection We Others is out this week, as are Hisham Matar's Anatomy of a Disappearance and Alex Shakar's Luminarium. Here at The Millions, Shakar recently offered the harrowing story of the publication of his first novel. Alexandra Fuller has a new memoir out. Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness. and foodies are celebrating with 40 Years of Chez Panisse: The Power of Gathering.
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