At the Cut, writers including Alexander Chee, Emma Straub, and Samantha Irby discuss how rejection has shaped their writing careers. Sigrid Nunez notes that it’s almost synonymous with the craft. “Rejection is an enormous part of a writer’s life,” she says. “It’s just the way it is. There are so many people out there wanting to show and sell their work. It’s easy to get lost and very difficult to get attention. As you would expect, I found it very discouraging, but I was also prepared for it because I knew writers. I knew what the life was like, and I knew that the only thing that you could do, if you really wanted to do this, if you really wanted this life, you had to accept that it came with a certain amount of rejection.”
Sigrid Nunez on Rejection and the Writer’s Life
Young Lions Fiction Award Finalists
The New York Public Library announced their eighteenth annual Young Lions Fiction Award, which is “given annually to an American writer age 35 or younger for either a novel or a collection of short stories.” The 2018 finalists are: Lesley Nneka Arimah‘s What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, Venita Blackburn‘s Black Jesus and Other Superheroes, Gabe Habash‘s Stephen Florida, Emily Ruskovich‘s Idaho, and Jenny Zhang‘s Sour Heart. From our archives: Habash and Zhang‘s 2017 Year in Reading entries.
Go Read Some Poems
It’s National Poetry Month – huzzah! To celebrate, head over to The Literary Hub and check out this list of ten new must-read collections, from Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky With Exit Wounds to Jamaal May’s The Big Book of Exit Strategies.
“If you must write prose or poems”
Stop the presses: Morrissey maybe, might, let’s not hold our breaths yet but could possibly in fact be publishing a memoir. To be recited in front of the cemetery gates of your choosing.
That’s Not Leather
In horrifying book news, the binding of one of Harvard College Library’s books has been confirmed to be human skin.
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Man Uses Twitter to Tweet About…His Roommate
Shhdontellsteve is a Twitter account devoted to “Steve,” the roommate of the unnamed narrator. Kind of like The Truman Show for Twitter. (As I write this, it occurs to me that this may constitute “telling Steve.” Apologies if that’s the case.)