At Electric Literature, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer take a look at fantasy’s impact on comtemporary pop culture, in their introduction to the new collection, The Big Book of Modern Fantasy. “Fantasy becomes something of use to a writer to make a political or social statement,” they write. “It’s not just a mode, it’s a tool allowing conversation with predecessors and conversation with an often bewildering and sometimes horrifying world; it’s no surprise that absurdism and surrealism arose when they did.”
Ann and Jeff VanderMeer on Fantasy’s Influence on Today’s Literature
Drinking Heavy Cream
That writing and coffee go hand in hand is no surprise, but drinking heavy cream from a coffee mug? That’s a little unusual, even for Agatha Christie. Flavorwire has collected 9 of the oddest food rituals of famous writers, and their list pairs well with this infographic on writing and snacks, and with Seth Sawyers‘s Millions essay on food and reading, “Because I, Too, Am Hungry.”
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Fire Good…But Also Bad
I’m loving these Time Travel posters from 826LA’s Echo Park Time Travel Mart. (via).
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Tomorrow!
This past week GOOD laid off most of their editorial staff, including former Executive Editor and creator of the #realtalk From Your Editor tumblog Ann Friedman. Posting some extra #realtalk on her blog yesterday, Friedman announced that the band of former GOOD editors are looking for work and also launching their own magazine: Tomorrow.
Form of the Future
“For our readers, time is the precious commodity they invest in every book they decide to purchase and read. But time is being ground down into smaller and smaller units, long nights of reflection replaced with fragmentary bursts of free time. It’s just harder to make time for that thousand-page novel than it used to be, and there are more and more thousand-page novels to suffer from that temporal fragmentation.” Tor.com on why novellas are the form of the future.
Blue Nights
An “extended short film excerpt” of Joan Didion reading from her memoir Blue Nights, which our own Michael Bourne reviewed yesterday.
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“This big, tangled thing”
Recommended Reading: “Another Tuesday” by Tanya Knox.
America’s First Bohemians
Recommended reading: Brandon Ambrosino interviews Justin Martin, author of Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America’s First Bohemians, about, well, Walt Whitman and America’s first bohemians.
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NaNoWriMo Author Scores Big
Erin Morgenstern‘s debut novel The Night Circus went from National Novel Writing Month project to 6-figure book advance after being rejected by more than 30 agents.
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