It looks like today is your lucky day. This piece from The Literary Hub gives you two for the price of one: first, there’s Herta Muller’s gorgeous take on the poetry of Liu Xia, and next, a careful selection of those very same poems.
On Stage With Myself
Salinger’s Lost Writing
J.D. Salinger was apparently “still writing during the decades of his seclusion and amassing a considerable body of work,” but what, exactly, was he working on?
Make-Outs Not Guaranteed
Live in San Francisco? Want to spend an evening with the fun-loving gang at The Rumpus? Well then, clear out your Saturday — they’re holding a Literary Pub Crawl.
●
●
DFW’s postcard to Don DeLillo
In addition to our own annotation of David Foster Wallace‘s work today, Electric Literature‘s blog has a great little piece of literary history up in the form of a postcard he wrote to Don DeLillo.
●
●
Awarding Ageism
“Make no mistake: if you run a prize, a “best of” list, a residency, with age guidelines you can’t fully justify then, however otherwise diverse your awardees, you and your organisation are consolidating racism, sexism, class and gender discrimination.” Joanna Walsh for The Guardian arguing that, by focusing on youth, literary awards and honors tend to reward “those most likely to have money, security, contacts, confidence.” See also our Post-40 Bloomers series, including interviews most recently with Lidia Yuknavitch and Cole Lavalais.
●
●
Mixer Publishing Contest
“Mixer publishing, with guest editor Paul Tremblay (author of Swallowing A Donkey’s Eye), is offering a $1,200 honorarium for the best speculative/sci-fi story, graphic narrative (comic), or poem.” The contest deadline is June 30th.
Tuesday New Release Day: Johnson, Auslander
New books this week: Adam Johnson’s much talked-about novel The Orphan Master’s Son, Shalom Auslander’s first novel and Hope: A Tragedy.
Words of the Year Watch, Con’t
Two more words of the year as 2016 comes to a close: Merriam-Webster has chosen “surreal” while The Guardian, in an act of timeliness, nominates “unpresidented.”
Yes, Strange
Just when you thought I wouldn’t make you sad about Alan Rickman again, here he is starring in a film adaptation of one of Samuel Beckett’s short plays. In case you missed it last time, these recordings of Rickman reading from Shakespeare, Proust, and Thomas Hardy will surely generate some feelings.
●
●