Why do Americans read so few translated works? A lot of reasons come to mind, but one is that translated books are often the purview of small publishers, who don’t have the same marketing budgets as the larger companies in the industry. At The New Yorker’s Currency blog, Vauhini Vara looks at the statistics compiled by Three Percent, a database at the University of Rochester that tracks publications of translated works in the country. Related: Oliver Farry’s interview with the Portuguese writer António Lobo Antunes.
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Women in Comic Books
There’s been a lot of talk about women breaking into traditionally male fields and hobbies, but in a blog post at The Missouri Review Caitlin Rosberg laments the continued underrepresentation of female characters and creatives in comic books. She then explores the work she’s doing to improve the situation by publishing women writers and artists in works like the Ladies’ Night Anthology. As she says, “I’m motivated in no small part by being able to say to those ‘make your own’ strawmen, ‘I do. I’m an editor contributing to published comic books. Are you?'”
Karen Russell, Short Story Sorcerer
A master of the short story, Karen Russell discusses supernatural metaphors for motherhood, lonely mutants, and the pleasures of world-building.
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Trying Anything on the Page with Kiese Laymon
Tressie McMillan Cottom interviews fellow author Kiese Laymon on the fear and willingness to try anything that fuels his writing process.
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e-lending leads to more reading?
According to a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life project, library patrons borrowing ebooks tend to read more than readers who aren’t borrowing ebooks. Galley Cat parsed some of the data if you’ want the short rather than the long of it.
Tuesday New Release Day: Adiga; Raymond; Ruskovich; Peacock; Williams; Gay
Out this week: Selection Day by Aravind Adiga; Freebird by Jon Raymond; Idaho by Emily Ruskovich; The Analyst by Molly Peacock; Falling Ill by C.K. Williams; and Difficult Women by Roxane Gay.
Visiting Main Street
What happens if your town’s reputation was made by an author who hated it? Sinclair Lewis grew up in Sauk Centre, Minnesota and scathingly satirized it in Main Street (our Modern Library Revue of it), but it’s the town’s only claim to fame nearly a century later. At The Morning News, Matt Ray Robison visits.
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Who owns a story?
“Who owns the story, the person who lives it or the person who writes it?” Both? Roxana Robinson writes for The New York Times’ Opinionator blog about “The Right to Write.”
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