Not sure what’s honest and what’s not in your life? Then consult Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit, which handily lays out seven tools for identifying bad ideas. The astronomer also provided a list of common fallacies in his 1995 book, The Demon-Haunted World.
None Found Here
Why Bookstores Are Needed
While calling for the preservation of the wonderful St. Marks Bookshop, Paris Review editor Lorin Stein explains that “magazines like The Paris Review need good bookstores, where the staff knows how to spread the word about good writing, face to face, hand to hand.”
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Ask George
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.
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What’s in a Name?
Why would anyone write a book anonymously? Maria Bustillos ponders anonymity at The New Yorker. “Anonymous is more than a pseudonym. It is a stark declaration of intent: a wall explicitly thrown up, not only between writer and reader, but between the writer’s work and his life.”
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Flannery’s Home
Over at The Paris Review, Wei Tchou travels to Flannery O’Connor’s farm in Georgia. As she writes, “The charm of Andalusia lies in gestures like this, the ones that urge you into feeling as though you belong. The place isn’t a fossil, it’s a home.” Pair with Nick Rapatrazone’s Millions essay on teaching and learning from “the greatest American writer ever to load up a typewriter.”
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“You were a dream of ice.”
Recommended Reading: Delaney Nolan’s “Buoyed Nets or a Towered Light Spinning”
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Epic Fail Gets Epic Press
We’re thrilled by the early buzz surrounding Epic Fail, our first Millions Original eBook. You can learn more about the project courtesy of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and Teleread. Of course, you could learn even more about the project by purchasing a copy of the book.
Poetic Bubbles
“‘I want to meet POETS,’ I typed. Beneath my earnest headline, I described how I yearned for a workshop buddy who wrote contemporary verse, someone who wasn’t afraid to give and accept feedback. I also asked for a sample poem, just to weed out the people I didn’t jive with stylistically.” On forging friendships with poets from Denise K. James at The Rumpus.
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