For The Guardian, Richard Lea investigates the fine line between fiction and nonfiction writing, a boundary that is drawn most firmly in the anglophone world. Pair with this Millions piece in defense of blurring the lines of fiction and autobiography.
The Made-up Divide
“On Stage as On Paper”
There's just something about David Foster Wallace's writing that makes people want to adapt it. We've written about this phenomenon before - there have been Infinite Jest-inspired radio tributes and music videos, series of illustrations, even a novel-in-legos. Interest in adapting Wallace's work doesn't seem to be slowing, and earlier this month Public Theatre put on an experimental performance of passages of his writing and interviews, A (Radically Condensed and Expanded) Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, which both Salon and Hyperallergic reviewed.
Rural Fever
Considering an anthology about writers leaving New York came out last year (with a contribution by our own Emily St. John Mandel), it makes sense that we should now look back on the career of E.B. White, who gave up his Manhattan apartment for a farm in rural Maine.
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On Online Publishing
Everybody should read this great piece on online publishing by Sean Bishop, Better’s founding editor.
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The Other Down Under
This week saw the release of The Jaguar’s Children, a novel set on the Mexican border that draws on author John Vaillant’s experience in his wife’s home state of Arizona. At The Walrus, Sasha Chapman provides more background on Vaillant in her review of the book, which notes the importance of jaguars in Mexican symbology.
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Wyatt Mason on Lipsky/Wallace
The David Foster Wallace interview, Although of Course..., comes under the scrutiny of one of Wallace's most attentive readers, in the NYRB.
Dealing with Bros
Wendy Willis advises us on how to deal with bros like Donald Trump and Robert Bly. Pair with Greg Chase's recent piece on understanding the Trump supporter through Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.
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“You are saying you do not exist in the American dream except as a nightmare.”
Make some time this weekend to read James Baldwin and Audre Lorde in conversation, which originally appeared in a 1984 issue of Essence, but has since been reposted by the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts.
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