Jill Abramson, fired last week from her post as New York Times executive editor, broke her silence today with her commencement address at Wake Forest. “I’m talking to anyone who has been dumped,” she said. “Not gotten the job you really wanted or received those horrible rejection letters from grad school. You know, the sting of losing, or not getting something you badly want. When that happens, show what you are made of.” Video here.
Jill Abramson on Rejection and Resilience
Get Inspired
Cristine Brache curated a great list of web-poetry videos for last month’s O, Miami Poetry Festival, and she was awesome enough to post the entire playlist online for all to see.
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From the Archives
Recommended Listening: The Esquire podcast has a new episode featuring Jay McInerney on Raymond Carver’s “My Father’s Life,” which first appeared in the magazine in 1984.
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Who Pays?
Once again, the old “who pays writers?” debate, this time courtesy of The Atlantic. Further reading: “Writers should be paid $1 million per article.”
Revenge of the Plumbers
Don Linn argues that despite all the excitement surrounding new business models and shiny new ereaders, 2012 will be the “revenge of the plumbers,” as the technical infrastructure needed to support the ebook boom comes into focus.
Top Underdog
“[H]e is a true, unrepentant nerd, who has only ever been looking for his people.” Buzzfeed‘s Doree Shafrir talks with Michael Chabon (and his wife, the writer Ayelet Waldman) about being a good literary citizen, his life in letters, and his new “fictional memoir” Moonglow.
You’re the West Egg to My West Egg
Here’s an idea you can add to the list of holiday gift ideas for the writers in your life. (Assuming the writers in your life are a pair of BFFs interested in gold-plated friendship necklaces inspired by The Great Gatsby.)
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TLAN:WOTFOB Excerpted
Reif Larsen’s “The Crying of Page 45” appears in this month’s issue of The Believer. This clever, inventive essay is excerpted from the book I co-edited The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books. You can get a taste of the piece at The Believer website, but the full essay in all its illustrated glory is available in the print magazine as well as in, of course, the book.
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