“I lost the first good novel I ever wrote to a computer disaster. It happened at a crucial time in my life. I was working nights, living in a mouse-infested tenement in Giuliani-era Harlem and still figuring out if I could even do this thing — become a writer for real.” Mat Johnson on NPR’s All Tech Considered blog about the ultimate authorial nightmare, and how he recovered from it. Pair with our review of Johnson’s latest novel, Loving Day.
Lost and Found
Shopping’s Scrivener
“I’m used to writing in very weird contexts.” Poet Brian Sonia-Wallace talks with Minnesota’s Star Tribune about his gig as the Mall of America’s first-ever writer in residence. Asked if he’ll go crazy during his several-day-long tenure, Sonia-Wallace answered “probably” (via Bookforum). Our own Marie Myung-Ok Lee had some opinions back when the residency was first announced.
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Language, the Savior
At The Guardian, Jhumpa Lahiri recounts the path that led her to write her latest book in Italian, one of the most anticipated books of 2016. As she puts it, “A week after arriving [in Rome], I open my diary to describe our misadventures and I do something strange, unexpected. I write my diary in Italian. I do it almost automatically, spontaneously. I do it because when I take the pen in my hand I no longer hear English in my brain. During this period when everything confuses me, everything unsettles me, I change the language I write in.”
Sunday Reading
Booksellers from NYC’s famous indie bookstore McNally Jackson share 5 book recommendations with Harper’s Bazaar. Elsewhere, The Daily Beast has collected the best long reads of the past week.
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Men Crying Over Poetry
A new anthology celebrates poetry “that moves men to tears,” and it includes the likes of Jonathan Franzen, Ian McEwan, and Salman Rushdie. Meanwhile, for BBC Newsnight, Clive James gets choked up while reading Keith Douglas’s “Canoe.”
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