At Poets & Writers, Sarah Gerard, author of True Love, offers a suggestion for a small act of creation that can set your mind in order during moments of turmoil. “To reanimate my practice, get out of a turbid state, I reach into the deepest corner of my hard drive to extract the oldest piece of unpolished ore—the earliest unfinished essay or short story I can find,” Gerard says. “I look for something that represents my most elemental attempt at self-expression. This is especially rewarding in the middle of a long project, such as a novel, when it’s necessary for a short period to emerge from underground and clear my mind. I give myself the task of finishing something in a short period of time: a day, at most a week. It’s easier if I have a ready-made starting place, like a rough draft.”
Sarah Gerard on Revisiting Unfinished Work
Victor LaValle’s Exceptional Latest
Year in Reading alum Victor LaValle’s just-released novel The Devil in Silver was shouted out in our first Great 2012 Book Preview, and Nathan Huffstutter says it’s “exceptional.”
Tao Lin in the News
Tao Lin signed a book deal with Vintage Books for his forthcoming novel Taipei, Taiwan. Carles of HipsterRunoff fame wished the author well with an eCard, and the New York Observer discussed the author’s developing movie project.
Garth Greenwell Recommends
Garth Greenwell has a reading recommendation for you. Check out an excerpt from Jonathan Lee’s High Dive at Electric Literature. Pair with our review of Greenwell’s What Belongs to You.
Passé Profanity
“Certain words have gone from being shocking to being neutered,” says Glamour editor in chief Cindi Leive, who has embraced the printing of “vulgar words” on her magazine’s cover since November of 2011. Ms. Leive is one of several women’s magazine editors who believe “magazines are catching up with other media, where women have been using explicit language for years.”
In the Pope’s Own Words
Over at Asymptote, Oonagh Stransky talks about the transformative experience of translating Pope Francis. As she puts it, “I not only discovered a gentle, deeply human side to this Pope, I felt something change or soften inside me.”