“There are so many cool things going on in Spokane now that I have this overwhelming urge to attend a tractor pull.” Jess Walter has written an addendum to his essay “Statistical Abstract for My Home of Spokane, Washington.”
Spokane 2.0
Scaring Men
Here are a couple Halloween-related essays from the good people at The Literary Hub: This fascinating literary history of witches by Jess Bergman, and this piece by Tobias Carroll on non-fiction writers crossing the supernatural line between fantasy and reality.
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Lunch Break
“Today I ate my shame, regurgitated it as a self-disgust, and digested it again as indolence. Known in the physical world as udon noodles with shrimp tempura,” Teddy Wayne told VICE. He and other writers (including our own Emily St. John Mandel) were profiled on what they eat for lunch. On the side: famous writers’ favorite snacks (Lord Byron liked to drink vinegar.)
Press Play
The New York Times unveiled a new music blog entitled Press Play. Each week, the blog will “present tracks from an upcoming new album.”
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Writers on Reading
How do writers read? Elisa Gabbert asked ten writers, including Teju Cole and Laura Van Den Berg (who wrote about her pet wolf Natasha for The Millions), about their reading habits for The Believer.
Literary Street Art
Emily Smith discusses the place of zines in contemporary American politics, over at Ploughshares. As she puts it, “Zines, like street art, are allowed critical power through anonymity—a function newsstand periodicals simply can’t perform for the sake of reputation or the sacrifice of advertisers. In this way, zines are small-scale democracies.”
Ann Patchett’s Project
This week, Ann Patchett, author of the recent book State of Wonder, has launched an ambitious, much-buzzed project — a new independent bookstore in the author’s hometown of Nashville, Tenn.
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