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
New Dramas Focus On Atom Bombs and Witch Hunts
WGN America has ordered a 13-episode drama about the Manhattan Project. The series, which is set for a summer 2014 premiere, will be written by Sam Shaw and directed by Thomas Schlamme. This marks the second series ordered by WGN America this year. The first one, Salem, will focus on the Massachusetts town’s infamous 17th century witch trials.
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An Engine, An Engine
“It is a superstitious business—childish, really—the marking, or even the noticing, of anniversaries like these. Such fastening pretends that one day can be like another, pretends that every day is not, ultimately, only its own day, the only version of itself that will ever come. But 'Daddy' is itself a poem built on a bedrock of anniversaries.” At The Paris Review Daily, Belinda McKeon marks the birthday of an oft-revered poem.
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Writing the Body
For Ploughshares, Emilia Phillips writes about “the corporeality of the lyric.” As she puts it, For some, the act of writing about the body is not necessarily the inclusion of the body as a poem’s subject but the body as the vehicle for the poem. Think of how repetition recalls movement, dancing. Think of how good a rhyme feels in the mouth.”
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The Salmon Is Inedible
Recommended Reading: The inimitable Umberto Eco on how to travel with a salmon.
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Not for Everyone
Ultra-niche magazines operate a bit differently than their larger and more mainstream cousins. Magazines like Donkey Talk, which caters exclusively to donkey hobbyists, aim for tiny audiences of a few hundred to a few thousand readers. They also cultivate their own jargon -- one magazine, The Mountain Astrologer, tosses the word “quincunx” around as casually as “email.”
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Tuesday New Release Day: Woodson; Korkeakivi; DeWitt; Hertmans; Hemmings; McHugh; McInerney
Out this week: Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson; Shining Sea by Anne Korkeakivi; White Nights in Split Town City by Annie DeWitt; War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans; How to Party with an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings; Arrowood by Laura McHugh; and The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half 2016 Book Preview.
Extra Salter
If you enjoyed Sonya Chung’s interview with James Salter, you’ll want to check out this video of the author reflecting on his life, and what led to his decision to “write or perish.”
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.