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.
Take It to the Bank
The Twin Wins the IMPAC
The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award has announced its winner: Gerbrand Bakker’s The Twin. The book was previously on the Best Translated Book Award shortlist. See Also: The IMPAC longlist and shortlist.
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The Ministry of Fear
“Nowadays, we tend to place spies into a cold war narrative: East vs. West, intrigue around the Berlin Wall, Graham Greene’s Vienna, and George Smiley’s London. But the first and most successful Soviet spies emerged much earlier.”
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Take Off Your Shirt, Mr. Darcy
How do you celebrate Pride and Prejudice‘s 200th birthday? By building a 12-foot tall statue of Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy in his wet shirt. The fiberglass statue is temporarily installed in Hyde Park but will tour the U.K. before settling in Lyme Park, Cheshire, where the famous scene was filmed.
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What We Can Learn from Goodnight Moon
Aimee Bender, Year in Reading alum and author of, most recently, The Color Master, writes for The New York Times about the structural genius of Goodnight Moon: “[The story] does two things right away: It sets up a world and then it subverts its own rules even as it follows them.”
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