“If you ask around, I’m sure you’ll be able to find a really bad novel easily enough. I mean a novel by someone who has spent isolated years writing a book they are convinced is a great work of literature. And when you’re reading it you’ll know it’s bad, and you’ll know what bad truly is.” What makes bad writing so bad? Toby Litt at The Guardian investigates.
Let’s Trade Manuscripts
A Film of Common Prayer
Looks like Joan Didion’s 1977 novel A Book of Common Prayer will now be adapted for the screen.
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The Ghost of Playboy’s Literary Past
“We editors told ourselves the naked women were merely carnival barkers: they got an audience into the tent, but we kept them with the content.” In the Guardian, Playboy‘s former fiction editor Amy Grace Loyd reveals what it was like to work at the magazine and how she commissioned work from writers like Donna Tartt, Margaret Atwood, and Junot Díaz. Read our review of Loyd’s debut novel, The Affairs of Others.
Beverly Cleary Turns 100
This week, Beverly Cleary turned 100. Revisit some of her famous characters like Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins at NPR. Our editor Lydia Kiesling writes on Cleary’s memoirs, which “transcend time.”
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End Notes from the Master
University students: I double dog dare you to use this David Foster Wallace end note generator to pad out your next term paper’s citations.
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Karen Russell’s Note of Hope
Karen Russell spoke to Frances Yackel about love, motherhood, hope, and her new collection, Orange World and Other Stories.
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5 Women Under 35
For the first time ever, this year’s National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” winners are all women. Congrats to Molly Antopol (The UnAmericans), NoViolet Bulawayo (We Need New Names, which was also just shortlisted for The Booker Prize), Amanda Coplin (The Orchardist), Daisy Hildyard (Hunters in the Snow), and Merritt Tierce (Love Me Back).
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