Does literature belong on the streets? Thanks to some forward-thinking initiatives like the Coffee Sleeves Conversation at Coffee House Press and the Chicago-based project “Poem While You Wait,” (in which poets stationed around the city produce original, on-demand poems for five dollars a piece) literature is finding its way to the masses.
Guerilla Reading
Read Dickens Now!
Charles Dickens turns 200 in February, which is one good explanation for two new biographies (Charles Dickens: A Life) and (Becoming Dickens) appearing just in time. But even more importantly, why is now the perfect time to read him? Here’s one hint: the man’s vast social imagination.
Survival of the Sleek in Publishing
In today’s NY Times, former Simon & Schuster executive Joni Evans ruminates on the Darwinian transformation of publishing, from tactile and sensory (paper and fountain-pen stains and typewriter bells) to e-everything (bidding wars and clean desks); she herself picked flight over fight.
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Love the beat.
Sarah Wienman, the news editor for Publisher’s Marketplace, offers some great tips for aspiring literary journalists. Once you’ve looked them over, maybe you’ll even want to pitch The Millions for our #LitBeat Tumblr feature? If so, just send me an email with the details of the event you’d like to cover.
The Voyage of the Poet
“I think what I would really most like to write about is palm trees and bougainvillea and hummingbirds. I would like to go into the desert and write about salamanders and the Grand Canyon, but history keeps rupturing my experience because politics are everywhere.” National Book Award winner Robin Coste Lewis on overcoming brain damage and becoming a poet. Pair with Andrew Kay’s Millions essay on the power of poetry.
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Colum McCann’s Soccer Verse
Major League Soccer put together a nice video to accompany the audio of Colum McCann reading his poem, “Robbie Keane.”
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Achebe Memoir on the Way
Chinua Achebe, best known for his novel Things Fall Apart, is working on a memoir to be titled There Was a Country.
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