“Could I write a novel about fugues in the form of a fugue?” Margot Singer wonders in The Paris Review, remembering the process of writing her first novel and considering other authors – Joyce, Nabokov, Woolf – who have tried to compose words musically. See also: our own Jacob Lambert on whether to write with background music on.
In a Fugue State
Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat Application
Are you a woman of color writer in need of the time and space provided by a writing retreat, ideally in October? Then you’re in luck, applications for the Jack Jones Literary Arts retreat have just opened! New York Times Magazine writer Jenna Wortham is this year’s Writer-in-Residence. Applications are due April 1st and there is a $35 application fee. But if you hurry you might be able to get your application fee waived thanks to generous donors. We urge you to apply now and wish you the best of luck!
Travelogue
Recommended: Year in Reading alumna Sheila Heti on her time at the Cuirt Literary Festival.
Ghostwriter
The Swiss foundation Anne Frank Fonds is attempting to extend the copyright of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl by crediting Anne’s father as a co-author — even though Otto Frank writes in the prologue to the first edition that the book mostly contains Anne’s words.
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A New Home
“But artifacts cannot speak for themselves; the meaning of a museum is determined by acts of interpretation.” Year in Reading alumnus Vinson Cunningham writes on the new National Museum of African American History and Culture.
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The Importance of Being Feminist
Liked watching Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk last year? Then consider picking up a copy of We Should All Be Feminists. The longform essay, now published as an ebook original, was adapted from topics Adichie touched upon in her speech, among them the importance of being a feminist in the twenty-first century. You could also look back on Adichie’s Year in Reading piece.
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The Electric Mind, The Atavist
David Carr takes a look at The Atavist, whose team of multimedia gurus has won the attention (and seed funding) of Google founder Eric Schmidt. Of course, the outfit’s also been receiving generous attention for their quality work, too. (I mentioned them a few months ago.) More recently, however, certain scientific circles have fawned over the subject of their story The Electric Mind, which tracks one paralyzed woman and the scientists who developed the BrainGate technology which eventually got her moving… robotically.
The Coming-of-Age Stories That Made Charlie Jane Anders
Charlie Jane Anders discusses the coming-of-age stories that shaped her award-winning science fiction and helped her confront the world in front of her.
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Misprint: Nabokov
Thanks Robin! Corrected.
Anthony Burgess accomplished that feat.
Beamish!
Well-read you are! I went off AB but 15 years ago I read (and owned) almost every novel (and a few books more) he’d written. Something in Earthly Powers irritated me and the spell was broken… and I must admit I never finished “Napoleon Symphony” (is that the book, or one of the books, you mean?), which was slyly… embarrassingly? dedicated to Kubrick. The problem with AB’s “musical writing” (that is, writing prose to mimic musical effects): you can’t really produce parallel constructions, for the reader, in Lit… there’s no polyphony. You have to make do with Gregorian chants!