Carolyn Keene, a name recognizable to most as the author of the Nancy Drew series, has never existed. By now, it’s a well-known secret that the popular mystery series was penned by an ever-changing cast of ghostwriters, ever since Nancy’s creation in 1930 by publisher Edward Stratemeyer. For CrimeReads, Radha Vatsal takes a look at Carolyn Keene’s many identities and how, in the end, it doesn’t matter who wrote the books. “Having a single name like Carolyn Keene attached to the Nancy Drew books helps reinforce a sense of consistency,” Vatsal explains, “and smooths over the reality that each volume had been worked over by many hands before it appeared in print.”
Nancy Drew and the Not-So-Secret Ghostwriters
On the Short Story
Sara Majka’s debut collection Cities I’ve Never Lived In is forthcoming from Graywolf Press. At Longreads, check out one of her short stories from the collection on working in soup kitchens across the country. Pair with our celebration of Short Story Week for recommendations, reviews, and more.
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Third Annual Asian American Literary Festival
The Asian American Writers’ Workshop is holding the third annual Page Turner: Asian American Literary Festival tomorrow, October 29th in Brooklyn. There you’ll find: Junot Díaz, Amitava Kumar, Min Jin Lee, Jayne Anne Phillips, Granta editor John Freeman, two stand-up comedians, five NBA finalists, seven Guggenheim Fellows, and a Korean taco truck.
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Brexit Blues
Recommended Reading: Jen Calleja offers a reading list to soothe your Brexit blues at The Quietus. “Like many people, I went through the five stages of Brexit – ‘oh well’, manic laughter, crying, rage, existential despair – in one day, and in the days that followed felt numb, nauseous, in doubt. But now it’s time to climb out of the mourning pit and work even harder than before at holding on to a European identity and keeping channels open to personal and literary dialogues with our European neighbours.”
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Science Fiction’s Race Problem
How can science fiction writers invent aliens and entire planets but not include multifaceted characters of color in their fiction? At The Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky discusses the genre’s equality problem and analyzes how race is viewed in everything from The Left Hand of Darkness to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. “When that future unthinkingly reproduces current inequities, it seems like both a missed opportunity and a failure of imagination.”
“Good evening.”
While you wait around for Hitchcock to hit theaters, you’ve got plenty of time to check out this online record of thirteen storyboards from the English director’s classic films.