There’s a tiff going on between Ursula le Guin and Kazuo Ishiguro. After le Guin accused Ishiguro of “despising” the fantasy genre, following an interview with the Times in which he wondered aloud if his readers would be prejudiced against his latest book, Ishiguro defended himself, claiming that he is “firmly on the side of the ogres and the pixies.” You can read a full rundown in The Guardian.
I’m With the Ogres
Even If You Lose, You Win
The deadline for BOMB‘s poetry contest — judged by Leaving the Atocha Station author Ben Lerner! — is April 16th. The $20 submission fee should be pretty palatable to everyone because it comes with a subscription to the magazine.
NYPL Forgives Late Fees
The New York Public Library is granting amnesty to 143,000 kids’ late fees. $1 will be knocked off each kid’s fee for every 15 minutes they spend in the library’s Summer Reading Program.
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Cuba’s Newest Voices
Recommended Reading: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo collected sixteen short stories from sixteen authors among Cuba’s “Generación Año Cero” (Generation Year Zero), which is a “movement of writers who began publishing in 2000.” The anthology, which is available for free online in both English and Spanish, features illustrations from Cuban artists El Sexto and Luis Trápaga.
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Kafka as Comedy
“When you think Franz Kafka, what comes to mind? Mitteleuropean gloom, perhaps… What you don’t think of is standup comedy.” Two young comedians are staging a new version of Kafka’s The Trial to hit the London stage next month.
The Gone Girl With The Dragon Tattoo On The Train
Someone’s finally done it, and it’s our own Emily St. John Mandel, to boot: over at FiveThirtyEight, Mandel crunches the numbers on books with the word “girl” in the title, concluding that we may not have reached peak girl yet. (Also 65% of the time, the girl in question is actually a woman.) Nonetheless, if you’re looking to go rogue, check out our guide about how to title every book you ever write.
What is Poetry?
“Poetry is clumps of words that make people feel something,” says Wendy MacLeod, in answer to one of Poetry’s most frequently asked questions on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Poeppel; Schwalbe; Scalzi
Out this week: Small Admissions by Amy Poeppel; Books for Living by Will Schwalbe; and Miniatures by John Scalzi. For more on these and other new titles, go read our latest fiction and nonfiction book previews.