Over at The Paris Review, Max Nelson writes about prison literature, from John Clare to Christopher Smart.
Prison Poetry
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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Speaking with Ishiguro
Recommended Listening: An interview with Kazuo Ishiguro on Hazlitt’s podcast The Arcade. Our own Lydia Kiesling reviews his latest work, The Buried Giant.
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An Interview With Marilynne Robinson
Read here, in the University of Washington’s alumni magazine, about how Marilynne Robinson approaches a book’s essence as “an elaborate needlepoint of decisions and observations”; how novels visit upon her as surprises; and how her recent move to New York might spawn yet another gift to readers.
Grammar Wars
“Now, I wear the bloody ink of your beloved red, revisionary pens like warpaint across my cheeks.” Ethan Scofield writes an open letter to Grammar Nazis. Strunk and White, Grammar Police, would be appalled.
Correcting Gender Inequity
The Interference Archive went on a Wikipedia edit-a-thon to help balance gender inequality on the site, which is overwhelmingly edited by men. Our own Sonya Chung writes on how to write across gender.
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