“If one-sentence stories are as common as snowflakes, one-sentence novels are as rare as white ravens.” At The New Yorker, Brad Leithauser writes about the one-sentence novel or the point when the story builds to a particular sentence. To give you an example, here’s one of his favorites from Lolita: “I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art.”
The Ultimate Sentence
Cockroaches in Skinny Jeans
Is that an iPod Nano? And a fixed gear bike? Uh-oh: you might have hipsters (via).
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Chabon: Friend to the Geeks
You may not know this, but Michael Chabon co-wrote the script for Disney’s latest blockbuster, Shirtless Martian Tim Riggins John Carter. In an interview with Wired, Chabon defends genre-writing, and also talks about his sci-fi influences.
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On (Not) Being a Woman Writer
Lio Min on being an "Asian American woman" who writes about "Asian American women's issues"—and then no longer fitting into one of those identities.
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“Hunger is the beginning”
“Desire is transformative, and transgressive: whether it’s an unpeeled onion or a noble lover, to want something, especially for women, can never be entirely benign.” Kristiana Willsey writes about folktales, fairy godmothers, childless queens and hunger in a piece for The Toast.
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A Story in Parts
“On the way home, the girl did not notice the color of the sky or the shape of the night, as she was too busy questioning why there were no secrets anymore.” As part of its Recommended Reading series, Electric Literature offers a special seven-part serial by Joe Meno. “Star Witness” tells the story of a young woman in a small southern town who spends the night searching for a missing local girl, and we can’t wait to read the next six installments. Pair with our own Edan Lepucki‘s profile of Meno from a few years back: “[he] seems more than willing to try new things in his work, to stretch his expectations of what he can do as a writer, and what a book can be.”
First He Marched, Now He’ll Run
“But the civil rights movement didn’t stop in Selma.” In a follow-up to March, his award-winning graphic novel trilogy, Congressman John Lewis will have a new series published later this year by Abrams ComicArt, according to Time. Run, which will also be a multi-book series, will pick up where March left off. Pair with: The Millions‘s review of March.