Looking for a new literary magazine to submit to? Check out Midnight Breakfast. The Rumpus’s Rebecca Rubenstein edits the online free literary magazine, which is looking for fiction, nonfiction, interviews, and art that will “spark a conversation.” The first issue includes a Jason Diamond coming-of-age essay and a short story by Matthew Salesses.
A Midnight Literary Meal
An Animated Bradbury
“You write to please yourself. You write for the joy of writing. … The enthusiasm, the joy itself draws me. So that means every day of my life I’ve written. When the joy stops, I’ll stop writing.” Recommended viewing: an animated interview with Ray Bradbury.
Not Quite a Novel, Not Quite a Tweet
Melville House’s “Art of the Novella” series gets some major, major love from Joe Fassler in The Atlantic.
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You Won’t Believe What She Has to Say
Articles lamenting the supposed death of reading tend to include a gripe that we now spend too much time on the Internet. However, as those of you who read a lot of books and live partially on the Internet are aware, the two activities aren’t mutually exclusive. NPR’s Morning Edition has a new story (which includes our own Janet Potter discussing her rewriting of classic novel titles as click-bait headlines) about the intersection between the lit world and the meme world.
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POC Destroy Fantasy
Heads up! Fantasy Magazine is looking for submissions for their special issue, “People of Colo(u)r Destroy Fantasy.” Per the guidelines: “We’re looking for original, unpublished fantasy stories of up to 7500 words written by People of Colo(u)r. The stories can be set in this world with fantastical elements or they can take place in another world entirely. Please avoid timeworn cliches like the White Savior, the Magical Negro, and the Woman Who Is Only A Sex Object.”
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The Birth of the Ellipsis
A Cambridge professor has identified the earliest use of the ellipsis in English literature. Find out more at The Guardian. Sam Anderson reminds us that ellipses are good in moderation through an examination of Dan Brown’s Inferno.
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No Wonder They Spend More Time, Then
Are these two statistics linked? According to a Pew Internet Libraries study, 30% of those “who read e-content say they now spend more time reading,” and according to studies cited on CreativePro, people can read printed text read “25% faster than on-screen text.”
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Hedging Against Future Risk
Recommended Reading: This excerpt from Nathaniel Rich’s Odds Against Tomorrow.
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A Detestable Dichotomy
Paulo Coelho recently condemned Ulysses for being all style and no content. In response, Ali Smith makes the case for style.
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