Harper Lee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman, died this morning in Monroeville, Alabama at the age of 89. Lee won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for Mockingbird, which later formed the basis of a film starring Gregory Peck. To learn more about her legacy, you could read our own Michael Bourne on the hidden character of Atticus Finch, or else read Robert Rea on a pilgrimage he took to her home.
RIP Harper Lee
Adaptation
Check out the book trailer for Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply.
●
●
Facebook’s Fakery
Facebook's amended S-1 to its IPO was filed this week, and the details confirm some of the doubts raised in the last filing. The company estimates that between 5-6% of its most active users could in fact be "duplicate" (read: fake) accounts. Put in more concrete terms, of Facebook's estimated 850 million users, 46,475,000 may be like this one. (46 million, by the way, is roughly the population of Colombia, Spain, or Ukraine.)
What’s the Point
Recommended reading: What's the point of handwriting, anyway?
●
●
Gulf Stream, Issue 9
The creative writing department at Florida International University has released the ninth issue of their on-campus literary magazine, Gulf Stream. The issue features the publication’s first inaugural Author Roundtable – a discussion between agents and writers from the Miami Writers Institute and novelists Cathy Day and Marc Fitten.
We Asked For It
Sinclair Lewis tried to warn us and we didn't listen–it can always happen here. Over at The Literary Hub, this piece takes a look at Lewis's 1935 political novel It Can't Happen Here as a mirror for Donald Trump's unlikely rise to political superstardom.
●
●
How To: Invent a Language
Think your novel could use a language of its own, but don't have the philological powers of Tolkien? Then take a few lessons from Game of Throne's resident linguist, David J. Peterson, who turned George R.R. Martin's 55 Dothraki names into a 4,000 word vocabulary with a working grammar.
●
●
Literary Map of Manhattan
An interactive literary map of Manhattan, at The New York Times Book Review: “Here’s where imaginary New Yorkers lived, worked, played, drank, walked and looked at ducks.” (via The Rumpus)
●
●