Young Money author Kevin Roose provides a glimpse at “What the Future of Reading Looks Like.” His prediction does not bode well for the makers of e-readers, though, and it’s not because e-books are on the wane. On the contrary, it’s because “when people read e-books, they’re doing it on their existing tablets and smartphones, not on devices built expressly for reading,” he writes. (Related: this may have a positive effect when it comes to rising carbon emissions.)
E-Reading: Up. E-Readers: Down.
Dispatch from Mississippi
Students from the Mississippi Schools for Mathematics and Science share poems and essays about life in their home state, inspired by William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Richard Wright.
●
●
Take It to the Bank
It’s notoriously difficult to figure out how to make a living as a freelance writer. The process forces the writer to learn the finer points of negotiation. At the Ploughshares blog, Steph Auteri writes about the “abstract mathematics” of her freelance career, presenting a list of everything she considers before taking on an assignment. Pair with: our own Nick Ripatrazone on teaching the business of creative writing.
●
●
Appearing Elsewhere
The spiffy new Los Angeles Review of Books website has posted my review of Ben Fountain's new novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.
●
●
Homecoming
Inaugural poet Richard Blanco talks to NPR about the experience.
●
●
It’s all about the characters
In the world of selling books, it's not all about the sentences. At Ploughshares, agent Eric Nelson argues: A fresh plot matters and unusual characters do, too. "The most interesting books have characters who do the opposite of what we’d do... Imagine Hamlet, if Hamlet took decisive action. Horror movies wouldn’t exist at all without the idiot who always suggests they split up."
●
●
P.D. James Passes Away
Author P.D. James, "the Queen of crime writing" and subject of one of our Post-4o Bloomers essays, has passed away, reports the BBC.
●
●