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
A subject “simply too controversial for the university”
As noted on Arts & Letters Daily, Yale’s decision to shutter its Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism raises the question, “Where does scholarship end and advocacy begin?”
Ernest Hemingway in Cuba
The Rooster Longlist
For the first time in the history of The Morning News’ Tournament of Books, the longlist of all the titles under consideration has been published. From these titles, 16 will emerge for the literary throwdown in March.
Robert Englund, Reader
Want to know what what Freddy Krueger’s reading? On his Twitter feed, actor (and author!) Robert Englund reports his favorite reads. Recently: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and The Singer’s Gun by The Millions contributor Emily St. John Mandel.
The Twelfth What?
Who knew? Here’s a handy infographic from Electric Literature that highlights seventeen films you probably didn’t know were based off of books.
American Gaze
“What does it look like to be the child of war? A product of war? What does it look like to be a queer child from a very traditional Confucian family? How does one feel to pay homage to a family but to also, in a way, betray those familial values?” Kaveh Akbar interviews Ocean Vuong about linguistic identity, syntax, and the American gaze for Divedapper.