Researchers have determined that “winning a prestigious prize in the literary world seems to go hand-in-hand with a particularly sharp reduction in ratings of perceived quality.” So if you’re very sensitive, take some solace in the fact that you haven’t won a major award, I guess.
Do You Really Want That Literary Prize?
“…invisible worlds, unspeakable intuitions…”
At Salonica, Monica Carter interviews Muriel Barbery, author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, about her new novel, Gourmet Rhapsody.
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Otherworldly
No one knows quite how to categorize Max Blecher’s Adventures in Immediate Unreality, in part because it has elements of a novel, a memoir and a long poem. The early 20th century Romanian writer chronicled his own slow death and the effect it had on his senses. At The Paris Review Daily, Andrei Codrescu writes about a reissue of the book.
sail I said sail I will Sail
In an opinion piece for the Irish Times, Julian Gough asserts that the Irish Naval Service’s decision to name two ships after famous writers is a problem because “the State hasn’t yet earned the right to be associated with Beckett and Joyce.”
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Staying Sharp
"There tends to be this idea that every piece and every assignment and every gig is always something speaking from the soul. We think that about great writers, that they’re incapable of doing hackwork." The Rumpus interviewed Michelle Dean about women writers, the research process, and her forthcoming book, Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion. Pair with: Dean's 2016 Year in Reading entry.
Darcy the Ripper
As part of the Funny Women feature at The Rumpus, Melissa Darcey wonders: what would it be like if Lifetime made movies out of classic novels?
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Quaker Was Better
Most of the time, when somebody insults a writer on Twitter, the insult disappears into the cyberspace ether. However, as with any rule, there are always exceptions, and one is when you trash Joyce Carol Oates and then thank her for inventing a breakfast food.
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