Recommended Viewing: Peter Witte’s drawings that explain his problem with bacon.
Baconian
Late American Novel Fans
Word is there have been sightings of the book I co-edited The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books in the wild, though it’s officially due in March. You can keep up on all the news about the book, including events and links to excerpts on the book’s new Facebook page.
Ghosts of Novels
It’s always disappointing when your novel fails to get published, but what if that novel were still lurking online? At The New York Times, Jason K. Friedman writes about finding the Amazon and Google links for his novel that never made it to print. “Google admits, ‘We haven’t found any reviews in the usual places,’ which in this case would be the planet Earth.” Pair with: Our own Edan Lepucki’s essay on how to cope with not selling your novel.
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Drawing Connections
Stephen J. Gertz shows off some of Bukowski’s artwork; Sketches of F. Scott drawn by Zelda Fitzgerald and a portrait of their relationship by Anne Margaret Daniel; An interview with three of the more than 130 artists involved with The Graphic Canon, a series of illustrated literary classics.
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The Golden Age of Hip Hop Writing
Throughout the 80s and 90s journalists turned hip hop into a literary movement. Pitchfork dives into that time and explores their legacy and impact on journalism and other literary forms. “Eager to extend the outer boundaries of their creativity, many of these writers would go on to ink novels, memoirs, short stories, scripts, and poetry, much of which stayed true to the language and attitude of hip-hop, as though their words were drafted to the sound of a boom-bap beat. It all added up to a low-key literary movement that writer and activist Kevin Powell has dubbed, ‘The Word Movement.'” Includes a great reading list at the end.
The Inmates Have Taken Over
“Summer morning is risen / and to even it wends / and still I’m in prison / without any friends.” Start your Monday off right with this piece from The Paris Review on John Clare, Christopher Smart, and the poetry of the asylum. Speaking of the madhouse, here’s a piece on Anne Sexton and her book Transformations.
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Sonya Chung Reading at Long Island University
I’ll be reading at Long Island University in Brooklyn on Monday, April 4th at 12 noon, with Gary Shteyngart. I have no idea what I’ll be reading – possibly something new, or something very old.
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Young Lions Fiction Award Finalists
The New York Public Library announced their eighteenth annual Young Lions Fiction Award, which is “given annually to an American writer age 35 or younger for either a novel or a collection of short stories.” The 2018 finalists are: Lesley Nneka Arimah‘s What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, Venita Blackburn‘s Black Jesus and Other Superheroes, Gabe Habash‘s Stephen Florida, Emily Ruskovich‘s Idaho, and Jenny Zhang‘s Sour Heart. From our archives: Habash and Zhang‘s 2017 Year in Reading entries.