This week in book-related infographics, round 2: Lapham’s Quarterly takes a look at the day jobs of famous authors, among them T.S. Eliot, who was responsible for processing reports on German debt, and Charlotte Bronte, who had laundry fees deducted from her pay. Pair with our own Emily St. John Mandel‘s essay on “Working the Double Shift” and “all the strangely varied occupations that a person accumulates when the primary objective is not to establish a career, per se, but just to pay the rent while they’re working on a novel.”
Day Jobs
Other People Pod: Roxane Gay
PANK co-editor, HTMLGiant contributor, hysterically funny reviewer of award shows and movies, and most recently the author of Ayiti, Roxane Gay, does an Other People Podcast with Brad Listi.
Our correspondent reports from AWP
Presenting another installment of #LitBeat: The US and UK Poets Laureate at AWP 2012.
Literature, Morality, and $25,000
“Morality… is a slippery slope and nowhere more, perhaps, than in regard to art, to literature, which begins as the expression of a single heart, a single mind. That it becomes more than that — connective, the fiber of a conversation between writer and reader, and between both of them and the world — is not just the point but the miracle… To frame this miracle in moral terms is to misread what art extends to us: a way of joining, for a moment only, across the void.” In an article for the LA Times, David L. Ulin considers the implications of the George V. Hunt, SJ Prize for Excellence in Journalism, Arts and Letters, which will award $25,000 to a writer “of sound moral character and reputation [who] must not have published works that are manifestly atheistically or morally offensive.”
To the Boys of the Street
University of Alabama graduate student Amanda Moore has written a powerful “Open Letter to the Boys of the Street” in which she addresses the troubling and all-too-apparent issue of street harassment. Meanwhile, photographer Hannah Price shares striking images of the Philadelphia men who’ve catcalled her.
Order Some Donuts
Next week marks the release of Jordan Ferguson’s 33 1/3 book on Donuts, J Dilla’s legendary instrumental hip-hop album. Over at Stones Throw, you can dive into an excerpt. I recommend doing so while bumping “Last Donut of the Night” in the background.