“if I am going to set a novel in a real place, in a real time, I must get all the details right. I should not put a wall around Washington Square, start the Iraq War in 2005, or claim that maple trees bear acorns. This matters because it has to do with keeping faith with your readers. If you get something verifiable wrong, why should they believe you when you really are making things up?” Helen Benedict for Amazon Author Insights on finding the balance between research and imagination when writing fiction. (Full disclosure, Amazon helps us pay the bills around here!)
Fact and Fiction
Sneak Peek
The summer issue of Moss is out, featuring the opening chapters of our own Sonya Chung’s forthcoming novel, The Loved Ones. For more more of her writing, check out her Millions essay on breaking up with books.
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New Vampire Weekend
According to Chris Richards at the Washington Post, the Ivy League rockers of Vampire Weekend are the unapologetic Bright Young Things of our recession era. Drinking Darjeeling on Daddy’s yacht never looked so good, he says, and their second album, Contra, out yesterday, sounds pretty good too.
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Book World
“These days…the brick-and-mortar bookstores that are still standing have a loyal following.”
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A Salinger Candid
Newsweek unearthed a heretofore unseen candid snapshot of J.D. Salinger “three years into the seclusion that would span the last 45 years of his life.” (Thanks, Chris)
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The Feeling of Being Watched
To give context to a new William Vollmann essay about reading his own FBI profile (available to subscribers only, sadly), Harper’s Magazine published a few pages from Vollmann’s file online. Among other things, they reveal that the FBI considered Vollman “exceedingly intelligent and possessed with an enormous ego.” (For a taste of the Harper’s essay, you can read this WaPo article on Vollmann’s connection to the Unabomber.)
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