“Bigger than the Zuckerberg Bump, bigger even than the Colbert Bump or the Oprah Bump—arguably the most historic bump in English publishing is the Sam Weller Bump.” A look at the surprising and overwhelming success of Dicken‘s first novel, The Pickwick Papers, from The Paris Review.
“The Sam Weller Bump”
The Thriller Code
“Rather than outlining your plot in chronological order, try outlining your plot as if it were a candle burning at both ends. Begin the process by writing your first and last chapter simultaneously.” Amazon Author Insights gathers, well, insights on writing from Dan Brown and other famous crime and thriller novelists. (Full disclosure: Amazon helps us pay the bills around here!) We will also never not recommend this evergreen piece from our own archives, of writers on the best advice they ever received.
●
●
Non-Directional Horniness
“Pink Trance Notebooks is the mind working, is material rising from somewhere deep to be shaped and reshaped into blocks of dreamlike text. It is also surface: material gathered from within reach.” Sarah Gerard at Hazlitt in an interview with Wayne Koestenbaum, whose new book is out in October.
Summer Comics Recommendations
July is the month of revolutions and upheavals, as Tom Nissley has asserted, so maybe you’ll want to change gears from reading literature and literary non-fiction to instead investigate some of the summer’s best comics. On this journey, Kevin Nguyen will be your guide.
●
●
Bill Morris, Artist
Our own Bill Morris has long worn his writer's hat, but he recently revealed to us his artistic side. Now his Flannery O'Connor portrait has fetched an impressive price in the recent One Story magazine charity auction. Is art world stardom next?
●
●
The New RIP
Is death “in” as a topic? It may seem like a ridiculous idea, but Lorraine Berry has evidence to back it up. She argues, using Benjamin Johncock’s The Last Pilot, among others, as proof, that mourning and grief are enjoying a bit of a renaissance.
●
●
A Murky Origin Story
"Their staff is always sharp, and they seem to cover politics more robustly now. But through the 1960s there were so many political trends they ignored, pretending to be focused on craft and art for art's sake." An interview with Joel Whitney about his forthcoming book Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World's Best Writers, which tells the story of how the intelligence agency helped found The Paris Review. With this backstory in mind, you may read the journal's author interviews in an entirely new way.
●
●
I Want YOU to be the Next Tournament of Books Judge
Do you have what it takes to be a judge in The Morning News’s annual Tournament of Books? If so, your application better be in by midnight Friday.
●
●