Here’s a question for a lexicographer: is a book still called a book if it’s too small for a person to read? Moreover, what do you call people who collect miniature books as a hobby?
The Tiny Gatsby
“The muscle that helps you ignore people with bad advice”
"The greatest mistake the American writer ever made was asking everybody else what they thought of their writing. Look around your current writing workshop. Look right and left. Most of those people will stop writing. Because it's too hard, they have no ideas, no one understands them, whatever. A few of those failed people will become editors. These are the only people in the room who should ever really matter to you."
●
●
Rainy Day Books
Someone left a manuscript out in the rain. On their tumblr blog, Doubleday Books share two pictures of their offices repurposed to dry it out.
●
●
The Future is Now
The various issues that were delaying the ebook release of The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books have finally been resolved (ironic, I know). The book is now available for Kindle, Apple devices and assorted other e-readers. Enjoy!
●
●
Tuesday New Release Day: Harbach, Hitchens, Tuck, Farah, Solomon, Barry, Krauss
A big haul of new books this week. At the top of the list is Chad Harbach's much anticipated debut, The Art of Fielding. Also new this week: the new Christopher Hitchens collection Arguably, Lily Tuck's I Married You for Happiness, Nuruddin Farah's Crossbones, and Anna Solomon's debut The Little Bride. Sebastian Barry's Booker long-listed On Canaan's Side is now available in the U.S. And Great House by Nicole Krauss is now out in paperback.
Cobbling Together
We tend to assume that life stories, in mentally healthy people, are concrete things, assembled from events that are hard to twist or distort. Yet all of us shape our own stories in ways we can’t always see. At The Atlantic, Julie Beck explores the idea that life stories, as we construct them, form integral parts of our personalities.
The International Literary Film Festival
"The International Literary Film Festival (InLiFiFe) shows films from around the world that are about literature." The festival will commence in Brooklyn's Spectacle Theater on Monday, November 14th, at 7:30 pm with Luca Dipierro and Michael Kimball's 60 Writers / 60 Places.
Write to the End
“This is worth repeating to yourself every day as you sit down at your keyboard: You must write to the end of the story. You must make progress toward that end today. A sentence, a paragraph, a chapter. You must push the story forward, forward, forward. Don’t stop until you get to the end.” Hugh Howey on the Amazon Author Insights blog about how to write a rough draft. Pair with a popular and wonderfully motivating piece by Nick Ripatrazone, “Don’t Worry. Don’t Wait. Write.”
●
●