Recommended Reading: Michele Filgate on the loneliest artists of all: writers. Pair with Angela Qian’s piece on a lonely writer, Olivia Laing.
Lonely Writers
The Pulitzer Bump
Just how much does winning a Pulitzer Prize help sales? Quite a lot, it seems. When Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer, it was ranked #27,587 overall in book sales on Amazon. As of this morning, it is sitting pretty at #61.
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Where She Was From
For only $1.65 million, you can have a piece of Joan Didion's childhood. Her high school home, The Didion House, is on the market in Sacramento. Before you make a bid, it might be good to brush up on California with Didion's 2003 memoir, Where I Was From.
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When Good Doesn’t Win the Day
Recommended Listening: On NPR’s All Things Considered, Petra Mayer offers advice to “literature’s unpunished villains.”
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Ben Stiller’s Daydreams
Ben Stiller has taken on the fashion and film worlds before, but his next directorial effort is literary. The new trailer for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, based on the 1939 James Thurber short story, is more Michel Gondry than Derek Zoolander.
Hop on the Raft
For the Poetry Foundation blog, David Winter interviews Night Sky With Exit Wounds author Ocean Vuong about poetry, how art is like public transportation, and turning your back on your own work. Pair with Andrew Kay’s Millions essay on the power of poetry.
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Some Solutions
Over at the Literary Hub, Helen Phillips and Matthew Vollmer talk about the short story as a form. Pair with Paul Vidich’s Millions piece about the future of the short story.