“‘I just want to be normal,’ she said, even though she had amazing powers and a super-family and was mega-gorgeous and better than normal in every way and the entire book would be terrible if she were normal and she had no conception of what normal was to begin with.” At The Toast, Mallory Ortberg lists flaws only a protagonist could have.
It’s Hard to be a Protagonist
Mathias Svalina New Release
Octopus Magazine and Octopus Books co-editor Mathias Svalina‘s latest book I Am A Very Productive Entrepreneur was released last month. You can read an excerpt here, or you can check out his short story “The Pregnant Couple” on Matchbook’s website.
Godblog Twitter Feed
God’s terse first line in the Book of Genesis — “Let there be light” — was ready-made for the Twitter generation. If only the rest was as crisp, the British novelist Jeanette Winterson recalled thinking, as she began to reckon with that first book for a new theatrical project on the King James Bible. And then it hit her: Maybe God’s wisdom would crackle for a modern audience as Twitter posts of 140 words or less.
The Detroit Comeback
Writing for Popular Mechanics, our own Bill Morris “envisions the bright future of the great American city” he once called home: Detroit.
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Shakespeare’s NYC
Coming soon: short films for each of Shakespeare‘s 154 sonnets, all set in New York City.
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On Reading and Personality Disorders
“Six thousand books is a lot of reading, true, but the trash like Hell’s Belles and Kid Colt and The Legend of the Lost Arroyo and even Part-Time Harlot, Full-Time Tramp that I devoured during my misspent teens really puff up the numbers. And in any case, it is nowhere near a record. Winston Churchill supposedly read a book every day of his life, even while he was saving Western Civilization from the Nazis. This is quite an accomplishment, because by some accounts Winston Churchill spent all of World War II completely hammered.”
Great Deal on Siri Hustvedt’s Earlier Novel
If your interest in Siri Hustvedt’s work was piqued by Hannah Gersen’s review of The Blazing World this week, then you’ll be thrilled to learn that the Kindle version of Hustvedt’s earlier novel, Summer Without Men, is available through 4/8 for the low, low price of $3.99.
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