The Swiss foundation Anne Frank Fonds is attempting to extend the copyright of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl by crediting Anne’s father as a co-author — even though Otto Frank writes in the prologue to the first edition that the book mostly contains Anne’s words.
Ghostwriter
Have Eyes, Will Write
You’ve read Elif Batuman’s dissertation on the double-entry book-keeping of novelists (pdf), but now your “debit” balance is low. (Whose isn’t these days?) Enter Sheila Heti and Misha Glouberman. They can document your very essence. The Paris Review has an excerpt from The Chairs Are Where the People Go.
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Retromania
When authors tweet: the cautionary tale of Brett Easton Ellis.
Second Opinions
How did Herman Melville’s friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne affect the writing of Moby-Dick? It’s a hard question to answer with any certainty, but Patrick James Dunagan gives it a shot, drawing evidence from Erik Hage’s book on the authors’ relationship. You could also read Hester Blum’s argument that Moby-Dick is the greatest American novel.
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Margalit Fox Talks Obituaries
Max Linsky interviewed Riddle of the Labyrinth author Margalit Fox about the other career she’s had for eight years: obituary writing. Fox remarks on how obituaries have grown from being “the bastard stepchild of American journalism” into “the best gig” in the entire industry. Here’s one of my favorite Fox obituaries, by the way.
Record-A-Poem
Celebrate National Poetry Month by recording a poem for the Poetry Foundation.