“I will tell them one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest story of all — the story of good and evil, of strength and weakness, of love and hate, of beauty and ugliness. I shall try to demonstrate to them how these doubles are inseparable — how neither can exist without the other and how out of their groupings creativeness is born.” John Steinbeck, American literary titan and author of The Grapes of Wrath, certainly knew a thing or two about creativity.
Down On Cannery Row
The Elements of Style
Alexander Chee invites Ann Beattie, Matt Bell, and five other writers to reflect on the usage of the present tense, “the current preferred mode of the self-taught writer.” Pair with our own Michael Bourne’s essay on grammar and Anthony Doerr.
400 Year of Shakespeare
To mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, check out 25 author’s reflections on his work. (The tube map has also been recreated in his honor.) You could also read Stefanie Peters’s thoughts on why we continue to rewrite the Bard’s stories.
●
●
The James Ellroy Phenomenon
“His books used to be ink on paper; now we have to squint through the cloud of the Ellroy Phenomenon.” And the James Ellroy Phenomenon looks like it will only continue: the author has announced plans for a second L.A. Quartet, the first of which, Perfidia, comes out next week.
We Stand Accused
●
●
Early Fire
Amazon says it’s shipping the Kindle Fire a day early, i.e. today.
●
●
Renowned Cuban Poet Resigns from Nation’s Association of Writers and Artists
Rafael Alcides Perez, one of Cuba’s most renowned poets and public intellectuals, has resigned from the Association of Cuban Writers and Artists because of “government restrictions he is being subjected to,” reports the Havana Times. You can read some of his work (in Spanish) over here, here, and here.