What’s better than being a writer? A writer who gets paid. Manjula Martin and Jane Friedman have launched the new digital magazine Scratch, which gives writers information on how to advocate for their work. The preview issue is free and contains essays on what freelancers can learn from street vendors, Cord Jefferson on outgrowing his materialism, and an interview with Jonathan Franzen. You can subscribe here.
Up to Scratch
The Bookless Library
Administrators at Cushing Academy in Massachusetts “have decided to discard all their books and have given away half of what stocked their sprawling stacks – the classics, novels, poetry, biographies, tomes on every subject from the humanities to the sciences. The future, they believe, is digital.” (Thanks to Millions reader Laurie who asks, “So what happens when the power goes out?”)
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As Bad As The Worst
Believe it or not, there may be a connection between Walt Whitman and US drones.
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Prize Stories
For Electric Literature, Kelly Luce shares what she noticed while reading short story submissions for the O. Henry Prize. Pair with Paul Vidich’s Millions piece about the future of the short story.
“It was as though the novel had outstretched arms and I fell in.”
Recommended Reading: Anna Wiener on Speedboat by Renata Adler. Adler’s book, which David Shields recommended on our site two years ago, will be reissued by NYRB Classics in March, 2013.
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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.
A Crook By Any Other Name
William Shakespeare: playwright, poet, and…potential tax evader. Turns out the Bard might not have been the nicest businessman.
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Born to Read
“Nothing in Born to Run rings to me as unmeant or punch-pulling. If anything, Springsteen wants credit for telling it the way it really is and was. And like a fabled Springsteen concert — always notable for its deck-clearing thoroughness — Born to Run achieves the sensation that all the relevant questions have been answered by the time the lights are turned out.” Richard Ford reviews The Boss’s new book for the New York Times.
While I think Franzen is a fine, fine writer, and there is much to be emulated in how he conducts himself, I can’t think of anyone worse to get advice from re: how to make it as a writer. Franzen has never had a day job, has no idea what it means to struggle, and has been a relative success since he was in his mid-20s. That’s like asking Ryan Gosling for tips on how to make it when you’re struggling as an actor. They know not of what they speak.