It’s easy to find essays targeted at writers that argue that rejection isn’t really that bad. In her new book, How to Not Write, Lisa Carver takes the argument a step further, as she says that not only does rejection not hurt you, it “frees you” and “facilitates action.” At The Rumpus, an excerpt from the book.
Not for Us
Much Ado About Burgers
Exhibit A: Joseph R Worthen’s ongoing series investigating the state of “Fast Food Hamburgers in the Southeastern United States.” (Parts Two and Three, too.) Exhibit B: Blake Butler’s nauseating (yet hypnotic) “Review of the New Wendy’s Pretzel Burger.”
In Defense of First Novels
What’s it like to have Jacques Barzun edit your first novel? Besides terrifying, of course.
The Quest to Write In Other Languages
A writer in both Italian and Arabic, Amara Lakhous writes on linguistic “polygamy” and her desire to become a trilingual writer. Pair with Hannah Gersen’s Millions piece on reading the English translation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words.
The New Genre
Is Twitter an official literary genre? David Mitchell, Philip Pullman, Margaret Atwood, and others take on the 140-character interface as a storytelling platform. Pair with our piece on the best of literary Twitter.
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Keeping Up
It’s extremely difficult to keep up with all of the books being published each day, so many thanks to the New York Times for this list of the latest in science fiction and fantasy. Now seems like as good a time as any to remind you about our Great Second-Half of 2016 Book Preview since we still have a bit of time left in the year.
Harper Lee Will Publish a Sequel to “Mockingbird”
Harper announced today that To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee will publish a sequel to her famous novel this July. The sequel, titled Go Set a Watchman, was originally written before To Kill a Mockingbird, and features that book’s main character Scout as a grown woman. The book is Lee’s second novel, and the first she’s published since the 1950s.
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