Want to get your book published? Move to Iceland. One in ten Icelanders will become published authors, which isn’t a big surprise because the country has a 99 percent literacy rate. Pair with: our essay on Icelandic writer Sjón.
Everyone Has a Book in Their Stomach
Amazed and Infuriated
Why do articles go viral? At The New Yorker, Maria Konnikova traces what makes a popular story all the way back to Aristotle, but today’s clickbait has two features: a positive message or an ability to excite the reader emotionally. This probably explains why we love those articles about puppies. Pair with: Our piece on if book titles were written for clicks.
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Poolside Reading
Leanne Shapton spoke with the New York Observer about drawing, writing, friendship, competitive athletes, and her new book Swimming Studies, which has been excerpted by The Paris Review Daily, and, of course, reviewed here on the The Millions.
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Class Notes
This week, the Ransom Center at UT-Austin opened up its archives of the works of J.M. Coetzee. Because the Nobel Prize winner is an alumnus, he says it’s “a privilege to have graduated from being a teaching assistant at The University of Texas to being one of the authors whose papers are conserved here.” (Fun fact: his starting salary was $2,300 a year.)
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A Massive Online Close Reading
On February 17th, the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program will launch a free digital course open to everybody with an internet connection. The course is entitled “Every Atom: Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself,” and registration is now open. The course will “take a collective approach to a close reading of America’s democratic verse epic.”
Editor Wanted
A highly sought after editor position is about to open up. Philip Gourevitch is relinquishing the helm of the Paris Review. Perhaps I’ll throw my hat in the ring. Gourevitch wants to spend more time on his writing.
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