In the most recent issue of Pank, read new fiction from Diane Williams. We review her collection Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty.
New from Diane Williams
Time to get on with it
At Open Letters, Rohan Maitzen writes about her awakening to the chasm between an academic appreciation for books and “a more personal, affective, and engaged vision of criticism. It has been surprising and exciting to me to realize how blinkered I was about non-academic book culture, and chastening to realize how little use my own specialized reading has been as preparation to join in.”
Keeping the Pace
“A story works when there’s momentum, life behind the words,” Mary Miller told Matthew Salesses at The Rumpus. She needs that momentum for her new novel, The Last Days of California, about a family driving to California for the rapture. Also, Amy Butcher wrote about her favorite Millerisms at Hobart.
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Look Away
“Recently, a friend told me she didn’t like pictures of herself because she never looked the way she thought she did in her head. I think this pretty much describes the universal horror that is looking at your own photos, and that’s why I love the selfie so much. It gives you all the controls to the story you are telling.” In defense of the selfie.
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Do Or Do Not
“Listen to what makes your hair stand on end, your heart melt, and your eyes go wide, what stops you in your tracks and makes you want to live, wherever it comes from, and hope that your writing can do all those things for other people. Write for other people, but don’t listen to them too much.” Being a writer is really hard. Fortunately, Very Good Writer Rebecca Solnit is here with ten tips on how to be a better one.
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New TQC
The newest issue of The Quarterly Conversation is up. Eclectic as ever, it features pieces on Yasushi Inoue, Jose Saramago, Stephen Dixon, Thomas Bernhard, and more.