Why read a book when you can carve it? Taiwanese artist Long-Bin Chen made a sculpture garden entirely out of carved books for The College of Charleston. Also have a look at Guy Laramee’s slightly smaller but equally amazing book sculptures.
Literary Arts Literally
Pamela or Plath?
I’m disappointed that I was only able to get 8/12 correct on the Guardian’s “Who’s the Poet: Pamela Anderson or Sylvia Plath” quiz, but I’m consoling myself with the fact that the 50% is the average.
The Paper Trail
What writers are actually earning money? Over at Electric Literature, Lincoln Michel takes a look at the new Author Earnings report, which scours Amazon bestseller lists and extrapolates the data to make claims about the state of publishing and self-publishing. Here’s an older Millions piece by Edan Lepucki on self-publishing as supplemental and influential to the traditional route.
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A Three-Minute Record
Recommended Reading: Laura Gianino at The Rumpus on seeing The Boss, Bruce Springsteen: “It felt silly to me, as a Springsteen fan of approximately four hours, to tell Keith that I felt Bruce understood me, too, but I realized somewhere in the middle of the show that Bruce was the same age when writing those songs as Keith and I were as we listened. Maybe I was just caught up in the moment. But if that were true, so was everyone.”
Thank You for Your Submission
If you’re a writer planning to submit a novel manuscript to a literary agency, you might want to read these guidelines and recommendations, over at Electric Literature. Pair with Edan Lepucki’s Millions interview with her agent about publishing a first book.
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Go Read Some Poems
It’s National Poetry Month – huzzah! To celebrate, head over to The Literary Hub and check out this list of ten new must-read collections, from Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky With Exit Wounds to Jamaal May’s The Big Book of Exit Strategies.
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If Nobel Laureates Wrote for Home Depot
The Paris Review presents a spread of paint chips “sourced from the colors in literature.”
Pshaw! Gulp! Excelsior! Ach!
For 50 years, The New York Review of Books has written some of the best headlines in the business. Matthew Howard rounds up every headline. Our favorites include: “Don’t Sing Your Crap,” “How Unpleasant to Meet Mr. Baudelaire!“, “Welcome to New Dork,” “It’s Your Fault, Henry James,” and “Portrait of the Artist as a Paradox.”
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