We’re not the only ones looking back on favorite pieces of the year. At The Paris Review Daily, a Gchat (yes, Gchat) with George Saunders, who corresponded with Katherine Bernard on Valentine’s Day.
Plus He Took a Selfie
Guys Lit Wire Book Fair
Guys Lit Wire is a group blog dedicated to “recommending books for teenage boys.” Twice a year, the group hosts a book fair in conjunction with Powell’s to help school libraries. For the past couple of years, the group has focused on Washington D.C.’s Ballou Senior High School, and this year their fair will run until October 14th. Please do check out the “wish list” and send a couple books in Ballou’s direction!
The Mask
Considering his experience as a musician and comedian, it makes sense that Jacob Rubin wrote his new novel about a performer. The Poser depicts the tumultuous career of a talented impressionist. At Bookforum, Rubin talks about the novel, his career as a screenwriter and his knack for impressions as a child. You could also read his interview with Reif Larsen here at The Millions.
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Write This Down
“Does handwriting matter?” That’s the question some researchers are working to answer and that Maria Konnikova tackles in a piece for The New York Times. The article ends by suggesting that “with handwriting, the very act of putting it down forces you to focus on what’s important… maybe it helps you think better,” which is doubtlessly encouraging to every writer who works on their drafts in longhand.
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Much Ado about Queneau
To commemorate publication of the 65th anniversary edition of Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style, New Directions has asked ten contemporary writers to “create new exercises in homage to Queneau.” Over at The Rumpus, you can check out Jonathan Lethem’s “Cyberpunk” exercise, as well as one of Queneau’s twenty eight “never before translated” exercises making its English debut in the new edition. Bonus: read our own Mark O’Connell on the “radical claims about the relationship between form and content” in Queneau’s writing.
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Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury
This pornographic valentine to Ray Bradbury is an anthem for all bookish teenage girls out there.
Curiosities: A Decision To Incorporate A Cold Motif
“Dibs on Darcy… You can have Wickham!“SNOOTs slander Strunk & White.New York Magazine offers an exhaustive – nigh unto Talesian – look at the marriage of Gay and Nan.For Colson Whitehead, “The Coolest Writer in America is obviously [DC Comics villain] Mr. Freeze…”…while, for luminaries at the PEN gala, it’s Mr. Doctorow.Vanity Fair on “The New Yiddishists“: “They have this idea they don’t want to be pigeonholed.” Oops.Bookslut decamps for Berlin, where she will become, presumably, Buchschlampe.For “that pleasant L.A. malaise,” see this annotated reading list.Cool old covers for sci-fi chestnuts (via The Book Bench)……and hot new covers for classics (via The Second Pass).Joseph O’Neill becomes the latest beneficiary of President Obama’s literary stimulus plan.The exclamation mark is back!!!The Esquire Fiction Contest is also back. All entries must be titled “Twenty-Ten,” “An Insurrection,” or “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again.”S.E. Hinton was literary royalty at the L.A. Times book festival.
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“I’ve escorted two e-partners to the edge of the grave”
Pulitzer winner Tony Horwitz describes – in incredibly depressing fashion – his experience publishing Boom, a digital short representing his first foray into “the brave new world” of digital publishing. Two takeaways for aspiring writers that are not explicitly mentioned, however: don’t write without a contract, and be sure to use an agent from the get-go.
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