Recommended Listening: David Naimon interviews Ursula K. Le Guin about her latest poetry collection, Late in the Day. Pair with Paul Morton’s Millions interview with the author.
The Science of Poetry
Gibson Girl
“By then she was bobbing her hair, and after her visit to Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the campus newspaper noted that the percentage of bobbed hairstyles among students shot up from 9 percent to 63 percent.” Edna Saint Vincent Millay, trendsetter.
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Learning from Munro
“When, like Alice Munro, you feel your way forward, sniffing and digging and groping toward a truth virtually beyond words, it takes a long time. And the structures, organic to that process, are as miraculous and indicative and expressive of that truth—one of the deeper truths of human life—that fiction is all about.” Elizabeth Poliner explains how mapping Alice Munro’s stories made her a better writer. Never read Munro? Check out our beginner’s guide to her stories.
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A Laugh for the Jobseeker
At McSweeney’s: “A GREAT JOB OPPORTUNITY!” (Funnier/sadder if you’re jobless right now.)
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“The void was me.”
Recommended Reading: an excerpt from Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss’s The Desert Places.
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On “Influencers” and Filters
The publishers Hamish Hamilton/Penguin UK have begun a “social media experiment” in which they’ll use PeerIndex to single out “influencers” to review and promote books. “Influencers” will be determined by the breadth and reach of their social media presence, and they’ll be selected based on their relevance to certain books. This kind of marketing is exactly what Eli Pariser warns about in The Filter Bubble. (For a quick summary, listen to his TED talk.)
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