“I can tell you that, as of today, I don’t feel any different about Mr Whitehead, or his review, or my response.” Richard Ford doubles down on his reaction to a negative 2001 review by fellow novelist Colson Whitehead. (Said response, in case you missed it, was to tell Whitehead ‘you’re a kid, you should grow up,’ and spit in his face.) We hope Whitehead is laughing at home with his Pulitzer Prize, recently awarded for last year’s literary juggernaut The Underground Railroad. And as our own Emily St. John Mandel reminds us, there are far more gracious ways to respond to criticism.
Spit Spat
Riverhead Heads
Riverhead Books makes an amusing pun in a new fundraiser in which individuals can purchase 3D heads of Riverhead authors — Marlon James, Khaled Hosseini, Elizabeth Gilbert, Lauren Groff, Nick Hornby and more. Proceeds will go to the nonprofit Libraries Without Borders, which supports migrant and refugee populations in Europe by making books and learning materials accessible in multiple languages.
●
●
But I wanna have it both ways.
Alexander Nazaryan joins legions of hand wringers in this short rumination on children’s reading and e-reading. Me, I just want it both ways.
●
●
Hold On
Lindsay King-Miller — she of Ask A Queer Chick — pays tribute to an old friend who died before her twenty-sixth birthday.
●
●
“We wept. / We filled / each other’s cups.”
Recommended Reading (and Listening): “Claim – For the Ocean” by poet Roger Bonair-Agard, whose latest book, Bury My Clothes, was a finalist for the National Book Award.
●
●
Dick Wimmer is dead! Long live Dick Wimmer!
Any writer who has felt the sting of rejection—that is, all writers—will be inspired by the story of Dick Wimmer, who has died at the age of 74. Over the course of 25 years, a total of 162 agents and publishers rejected Wimmer’s first novel, Irish Wine, before it was finally published by Mercury House in 1989. The New York Times called it a “taut, finely written, exhaustingly exuberant first novel.” The L.A. Times invoked James Joyce in its review. Wimmer, the iron man of the rejection wars, went on to publish two sequels, Boyne’s Lassie and Hagar’s Dream (All three books are now available in a single volume from Soft Skull.) The moral of Wimmer’s story? Never give up.
Mutual Self-Interest in Bad Decline
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, America needs George Saunders. Fortunately, the editors at The New Yorker’s Shouts and Murmurs blog appear to understand this.
●
●
Moco Loco
On the new food-writing website Toque, Elina Shatkin takes chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo (owners of Animal, the wonderful L.A. restaurant exalting all things meaty) to try moco loco.