We’re proud to report that “Beautiful Babies” by our editor Lydia Kiesling and “Summer without End” by Wayne Scott were both named “Notable Essays” in the 2016 edition of The Best American Essays, edited by Jonathan Franzen.
Best American Notables at The Millions
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Elected
J.K. Rowling says Donald Trump is worse than Voldemort. The Harry Potter author has come out against the presidential hopeful, tweeting that “Voldemort was nowhere near as bad.” Yes, she even said his name.
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“Almost Like the Blues”
Recommended reading (and listening): “Almost Like the Blues” by Leonard Cohen.
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Make it a Ben Ehrenreich Sunday
Recommended Reading: Ben Ehrenreich’s story “Everything You See is Real”
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“Depressing day”
A while back, I linked to a contentious letter between Saul Bellow and Jack Ludwig, written not long after Bellow found out Ludwig was sleeping with his wife. Now, here’s a (somewhat) less angry piece of correspondence, sent from Philip Larkin to Barbara Pym. Sample quote: “Has anyone ever done any work on why memories are always unhappy?”
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On Hunger
Alexander Chee has a stunning new story in Guernica. He writes, “I wanted to eat and so I learned to sing…It took more than a witch to make a singer out of me.” Pair with Claire Cameron’s Millions interview with the author about his new novel, The Queen of the Night.
The Library of the Future
If you’re looking forward to the next Margaret Atwood novel, you’ll have to wait a century. Atwood is the first author to participate in the Future Library project, in which 100 authors will write 100 original manuscripts to be published 100 years from now. We’re envious of our grandchildren. If you’d like an Atwood fix sooner, her short story collection Stone Mattress: Nine Tales comes out next week.
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True Blood
Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Mysteries (recently reincarnated as HBO’s True Blood), talks with Barbara Peters of the Poisoned Pen Press and Bookstore for her interview series “The Criminal Calendar.” See the first of six YouTube installments here. Harris, like her most famous heroine, offers a mix of canny intuition and folksy charm. Asked about the bisexuality of one very old vampire in “the Sookie-verse” she answers Peters, “I figure if you live that long, you might as well diversify. Wouldn’t you get bored, you would think–you’d be willing to try anything if you live that long.”
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