Recommended Reading: The selected letters of William S. Burroughs at The Paris Review Daily. Read his correspondences with family and writers Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer. Pair with Jonathan Clarke’s article on why an author’s biography will never be more important than their writing.
Burroughs’ Selected Letters
Chandra on Hemingway
It’s no secret we enjoy and highly recommend The Atlantic‘s By Heart series, and Vikram Chandra‘s essay on reading Hemingway is no exception. Pair with Jonathan Goldman‘s review of a modern edition of The Sun Also Rises.
Celebs to Read to You
Audible is bringing out the big guns for its new A-List collection, a series of audio books read by celebs, including Samuel L. Jackson narrating A Rage in Harlem and Anne Hathaway doing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
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All Things Interwoven
“Imagination for me has always been about the spaces in between, a sort of filler that completes a picture. If what we know is the jaggedness of the ocean floor, then imagination is the body of water that defines what is hidden and what is seen.” This essay on interstices and representing Hawai’i Creole English as a legitimate literary participant is excellent.
AWP, Here We Come
Anyone heading to Los Angeles for AWP might first want to check out this handy AWP Advice from a Young Curmudgeon. Some tips include not propositioning Maggie Nelson with temporary tattoos and the promise of a Scandinavian vacation.
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“The Lennon Letters” Due Out October 2012
Yoko Ono has permitted the publication of a book of John Lennon’s personal letters “to his friends, family, strangers, newspapers, organizations, lawyers and the laundry.” The Lennon Letters is due out October 2012, and will be edited by Hunter Davies, author of the authorized biography The Beatles.
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In Poor Taste
“Some of the most impassioned conversation in the literary world has been devoted to highlighting what it lacks: voices of people of color, of gays and lesbians, of those marginalized or oppressed or simply ignored. Look a little closer, however, and you’ll notice this conversation focuses on race and gender while paying less attention to a demographic category that’s arguably just as determinative: class.” Adam Fleming Petty on the marginalization of working class lit.
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Our Lucrative Profession
The folks at Harper’s Bazaar (not Harper’s Magazine) are launching a new short story competition, and the grand prize is wild: an all-expenses-paid weeklong stay on a private Scottish island, publication in the May 2014 issue of the magazine and a first-edition book from the Asprey’s Fine and Rare Books Department, worth up to £3,000. (And yes, that’s pounds, not dollars.)