He befriended Mark Twain. His father wrote The Scarlet Letter. He drank wine with Oscar Wilde, George Eliot and Henry James, and William Randolph Hearst once hired him as a reporter. He even published a few books to critical acclaim. So why do so few of us know anything about Julian Hawthorne? In the WaPo, Michael Dirda reviews a new biography. (h/t Arts and Letters Daily)
The Son
Listening in on The Missouri Review
Recommended Listening: The Missouri Review’s new weekly podcast, Soundbooth, which will feature interviews and readings with authors, editors, agents, and more. The first episode is a conversation between editor in chief Speer Morgan and marketing director Kris Somerville on the research they do for the journal’s feature section. You can subscribe here.
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“Good evening.”
While you wait around for Hitchcock to hit theaters, you’ve got plenty of time to check out this online record of thirteen storyboards from the English director’s classic films.
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Defending the Poet Laureate
Recommended reading: Our own Nick Ripatrazone writes “In Defense of the Poet Laureate” and about the tension that arises when poetry meets government for the new Literary Hub site.
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O Pioneer!
Audiobook fans take note: Our Millions original ebook The Pioneer Detectives by Konstantin Kakaes is now available from Audible.com.
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Poets on Poets
Editing poetry can be tricky, and the work is often misunderstood. Many of the best houses leave the work to the experts: actual poets. But is that the best route? Indeed, as this Telegraph article puts it, “a house’s tone and fortunes can be radically altered depending on the poet in charge of the poems of others.”
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Elena Ferrante, Author. Columnist?
Best selling author Elena Ferrante will be a new weekend columnist for the Guardian magazine. Why did she decide to go this route in addition to writing a screenplay? Read her reasoning and pair with this essay on reading Italy through Ferrante’s work.
More Pale King
A couple of Pale King odds & ends: N+1 reruns Benjamin Kunkel‘s astute DFW memoriam, and Jonathan Raban tackles the religious side of the Wallace weltanschauung for the NYRB. (Whither Wyatt Mason?)
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Margalit Fox Talks Obituaries
Max Linsky interviewed Riddle of the Labyrinth author Margalit Fox about the other career she’s had for eight years: obituary writing. Fox remarks on how obituaries have grown from being “the bastard stepchild of American journalism” into “the best gig” in the entire industry. Here’s one of my favorite Fox obituaries, by the way.