Looking to trade memes with the editors of The Paris Review? Not fully convinced that Lorin Stein and Sadie Stein are not in fact related? Then log on to Reddit at 3 PM EST, when the editors will take your questions as part of a joint AMA session.
Ask George
Sportsballers Who Love Books
It’s not often that you hear about an athlete who hosts his own book podcast, but Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck does just that, reports Yahoo News. (Also namechecked for their bibliophilic tendendies in the piece: Pats receiver Malcolm Mitchell and retired baller Donte’ Stallworth.)
In addition to the show, where Luck interviews his favorite authors, the QB also has a book club; this month’s reads are A Wrinkle in Time for rookies, i.e., kiddos, and The Soul of an Octopus for veterans, his adult participants.
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Step Aside Shakes
Hold on to your starched collars: In breaking Shakespeare news, Oxford University Press announced that in its new edition of the complete works of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe will receive credit as co-author on the Henriad plays. And if you’re really tired of Will getting all the credit, you’ll enjoy our recent piece about the surge of interest in Ben Jonson, who’s basically the Third Tenor to their more famous voices.
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Bad Behavior
There’s a scandal gaining traction in the UK, and it involves sending books through the mail. The country’s justice secretary, Chris Grayling, is standing by a new law that bans inmates from receiving parcels of books. According to him, the law is intended to make inmates “earn [their] privileges.” (h/t Page-Turner)
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D.H. Lawrence at 21
“If you would write, try to be terse and in some measure original—the world abounds with new similes and metaphors… If you cannot tell people of something they have not seen, or have not thought, it is hardly worthwhile to write at all.” The Paris Review shares writing advice from a 21-year-old D.H. Lawrence .
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Home Is Where the Story Begins
“Is the reason to have a home, as the narrator in Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation, asserts, ‘to keep certain people in and everyone else out’? Or does home, as the narrator in William Maxwell’s autobiographical novel So Long, See You Tomorrow suggests, work primarily as a scaffolding of known things — as a place to read, a place to stash the damp umbrella, a place to listen to the porch swing creak?” Beth Kephart on the literary significance of home.
Anthology of African LGBT Writing
Poet Abayomi Animashaun has issued a call for “poems by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals living in Africa and in the Diaspora.” Submissions “of high merit” will be considered for a forthcoming anthology.
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