One of the more common questions that comes up in The Nervous Breakdown’s self-interviews is what the subjects consider to be the hardest part of the writing life. The most recent edition sees Jac Jemc, whose latest came out last week, admit that time is what foils her: “Everything takes longer than I think it will, more drafts than I think it will.” This might be a good time to look back on some earlier examples of the form.
Hard Time
Always Watching
Neurotic writers or friends-of-writers are likely to have asked themselves an uncomfortable question: do the writers I know use my foibles for material? At The New Statesman, Oliver Farry lists a number of proofs that they do, citing Dante’s Inferno, Madame Bovary and Beckett’s debut novel Murphy.
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Killing a Zombie
Here is a not-quite list of eighty books no woman should read–in which Rebecca Solnit, badass feminist and author of Men Explain Things To Me, attempts to kill the "internet zombie" that is Esquire’s “The 80 Best Books Every Man Should Read” list.
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Little Big League
What does the Man Booker prize mean for independent presses? On Salt, Saraband, and Oneworld, the three indie publishers with books on the Man Booker longlist this year.
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Michiko Kakutani on Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom”
At The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani gets in an early review of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, heralding it “his most deeply felt novel yet.”
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Writers on Reading
How do writers read? Elisa Gabbert asked ten writers, including Teju Cole and Laura Van Den Berg (who wrote about her pet wolf Natasha for The Millions), about their reading habits for The Believer.
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Literatura de Miami
Attention, Miami residents who also read The Millions, former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins will be reading on April 1st in the 305. March 15th is the final day to buy tickets.
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Stephen Fry’s Culture Shock
Stephen Fry uses the Alabama-Auburn Iron Bowl to summarize the state of America.