“You don’t have to immediately quit your job to become a writer. You need only to start writing.” The New York Times transcribes an excerpt from the “Dear Sugars” podcast with Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond. For more writerly advice, see our own columnists Swarm & Spark on whether writing a novel will jeopardize your mental health.
Begin Now
Literally crowding the text
Would you buy your way into a novel? For $900 CDN you can determine the title of Daniel Perlmutter’s next book. If that’s a little steep for ya, $15 gets one of your sentences in there.
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Titular Oddities
The shortlist for the Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of 2010 has been announced. Among the hopefuls: Managing a Dental Practice: The Genghis Khan Way.
The Plagiarist
“How I wish he’d stuck to being himself. Instead, he chose to be me.” How it feels to have one’s poetry plagiarized.
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Bean Scene
Writers finally have a justification for their $4.00 latte habit. Even though coffee might be a detriment to imagination, the whirring of blenders and cafe chatter can boost creativity. If you want the inspiration jolt without the java, listen to Coffitivity’s recording of cafe ambient noise.
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The Verdict Is In!
Hurry over to the Tournament of Books to see whether Open City or The Sisters Brothers was this year’s big winner!
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Tuesday New Release Day: Barrett; Gurganus; Levy; Vann; Beatty; McGuane; Ishiguro
Out this week: Young Skins by Colin Barrett; Decoy by Allan Gurganus; The Unloved by Deborah Levy; Aquarium by David Vann; The Sellout by Paul Beatty; Crow Fair by Thomas McGuane; and Kazuo Ishiguro’s first new novel in ten years (which our own Lydia Kiesling reviewed yesterday). For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great 2015 Book Preview.
Thoughts of a Hand-Wringer
If you were to guess (no cheating) the author of a new essay on hypochondria, who would you guess? Larry David? Calvin Trillin? Or someone a little more… nebbishy?
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