Dreaming of escaping to outer space during this time? We don’t blame you. Christopher Wanjek at the Guardian lists some of the best books that imagine a future on other planets. The list includes works by Martha Ackmann, Mary Roach, and Jules Verne. “The next few centuries may see us travel to Mars and beyond,” Wanjek writes, “but human explorers will find that writers have already planted the flag of the imagination on all these new horizons.”
An Intergalactic Reading List
When Good Things Happen to Bad People
When Good Things Happen to Bad People: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. On one of our favorite industry blogs, The Rejectionist weighs in on one of publishing’s perennial problems: what to do when someone really foul ends up being way more successful than you are.
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Disrupting the Truth
Recommended Reading: How social media swallowed print newspapers — i.e., the future of the book.
First Novel Prize Longlist
The Center for Fiction has released the longlist for the First Novel Prize. The Girls by Emma Cline (see our review) and What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell (see our review) are among the novels to make the cut.
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So, You Want to Submit to a Literary Magazine
Over at The Review Review, Chuck Augello provides a useful guide for writers trying to determine where they should submit their work. He covers several aspects of the process: Identifying Potential Markets, Circulation, Evaluating the Journal, Evaluation Criteria, and Simultaneous Submissions. None are more important than the last, though: Do the Work.
Engage, Don’t Just Talk
“Perhaps no part of the First Novel Experience is as confusing and overwhelming as figuring out how to balance the demands of social media with the demands of writing more fiction.” Martha Woodroof talks with Lydia Netzer about social media in the world of publishing and book promotion. Their advice? “Try to be funny as much as you can. Try to participate in conversations, not just start your own. Try to engage, not just talk.”
Our New Mantra
“So Be It! See To It!” So you may have already seen this on the literary internet earlier this year, but today’s Friday, and we needed a little infusion of life: enter Octavia Butler‘s amazingly awesome note to self (via the also amazing and awesome Rose Eveleth).
Down to/Poetry
A couple weeks ago, we published our review of Ben Lerner’s 10:04, the follow-up to his debut Leaving the Atocha Station. At the Poetry Foundation’s blog, Adam Plunkett argues that 10:04 inadvertently reveals its author’s poetic training. The book, he says, “dissolves into a poem.”
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