Before Donal Ryan made the Man Booker Prize Longlist, his debut novel, The Spinning Heart, was rejected 47 times until an intern plucked it out of the slush pile. We bet those 47 publishers are smacking themselves on the forehead right now. Pair with: Research has shown that rejection is like physical pain.
Giving J.K. Rowling a Run for Her Rejections
Defending the Poet Laureate
Recommended reading: Our own Nick Ripatrazone writes “In Defense of the Poet Laureate” and about the tension that arises when poetry meets government for the new Literary Hub site.
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Dispatch from Kolkata
Over at Electric Literature, Megha Majumdar writes about the changing architecture in Kolkata, the quest for authenticity, and nostalgia. Pair with Olena Jennings’s Millions essay on nostalgia for a life never lived.
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WTF Amazon?!
Need a good way to start your Monday? Try browsing a repository of the craziest, most confusing things Amazon has on offer.
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Lauren Wilkinson Wants to Buy Happiness
Lauren Wilkinson reflects on living in tenuous financial balance in her 20s, and feeling, 10 years and a lot of MFA-based debt later, that no amount of money will ever be "enough."
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A Voice of Gravitas
Claire Vaye Watkins’s essay on pandering has gotten a lot of responses, including one from Man Booker Prize winner Marlon James. Over at NPR, they discuss the issues of sexism and racism in publishing, cultural ventriloquism, narrative authority, and more.
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Chicken Soup for the Stall
As literary genres go, bathroom graffiti ranks somewhere between obscenities carved into desks and poorly spelled comments in terms of respectability. Yet it’s still a form that could reveal interesting things, which is why a group of researchers took a series of fact-finding trips to public stalls across America. Their takeaway? “The mere fact of being in a public bathroom could be skewing how people choose to present themselves when they uncap that Sharpie.” Related: Buzz Poole on The History of American Graffiti.
When will it be available in the USA?
> We bet those 47 publishers are smacking themselves on the forehead right now.
I bet they’re not.
So long as people get to keep their jobs they don’t care. They’d rather play it safe and reject something good than publish something that’s risky. Playing it safe is what publishing (and literally everything else in America) is all about these days. Unless you’re an internet kid who invents something like a cell phone that can emit the smell of farts at the push of a bottom. Then you’ll have fifty VCs banging on your door.