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.
Always Watching
Read Your McClanahan
Recommended Reading: an excerpt from Crapalachia: A Biography of a Place by Scott McClanahan. We recently featured an article by Eric Obenauf – the book’s publisher – on the benefits of moving away from New York City.
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Now Is Not the Time for Realism
Recommended Listening: Margaret Atwood on her new novel – one of the most anticipated books of 2015, and the fall of realistic fiction. As she explains it, “when there’s perceived instability that’s happening you can’t write [a so-called realistic] novel and have people believe it.”
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Serial Vonnegut
Amazon is putting out seven never before published works from Kurt Vonnegut as a serial ebook called Sucker’s Portfolio.
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On American Sonnets
Stephanie Burt writes about Terrance Hayes, Wanda Coleman's American Sonnets, confinement, and the mechanics of lyric poetry.
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The Poet’s Essay
Recommended Listening: David Naimon interviews recent Whiting Award-winning poet Brian Blanchfield about his essay collection, Proxies.
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