Ayobami Adebayo is interviewed by Abigail Bereola for Hazlitt and it’s fantastic. They discuss proverbs, romantic love, sickle cell anemia and writing your first book. “At the risk of sounding very narcissistic, I’m going to say I write for myself ultimately. And maybe my sister. I think that when I’m working, it’s very difficult for me to think about an audience, perhaps because sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming. I’m trying to figure out so many things that I really don’t start thinking about the idea that other people might read this thing until, ‘Oh my God, it’s publication day’ and I have a panic attack like ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’ I think the awareness of an audience is something I’m just coming into because this is a first book.”
Ayobami Adebayo: Rising Star
End of an Era
Fifteen years later, Salman Rushdie and John Le Carre have ended their feud.
Not Super Idealized
Recommended Reading: This interview from Full Stop with Lisa Hanawalt, producer and production designer of the Netflix series BoJack Horseman: "We aren’t supposed to openly discuss shitting in polite society, so making artwork that frankly portrays it is titillating. I think it’s called 'desublimation' in fancy art-school terms, but it’s going back to a childish, playing around in our own muck state, and that’s why it’s as fun and appealing as it is repulsive."
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A Writer Who Needed “The Talk”
The Journals and Diaries of E.M. Forster is now on sale, and among other things, it reveals that its author, who appeared to feel queasy about sex in general, didn’t know exactly how “male and female joined” until he was thirty years old.
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Talk Like a Beat
October 7 is “Talk Like a Beat” Day.
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How Not to Have an Awful Panel
From the pedant to the eulogist, here are four distinct personality types that are sure to derail your literary event. While we’re at it, here’s to hoping that none of these four individuals show up to your next marathon reading.
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