At The New York Times, Alyssa Cole discusses her new book, When No One Is Watching, with Concepción de León, and the difference between writing romances and thrillers. “When I’m writing romance, I’m leaning more into the good,” Cole says. “In every romance you have to also make the reader feel bad sometimes, but you lean into certain beats that will make the reader feel happy, feel hopeful and excited. In this, it was fun to be able to lean into things that would make the reader feel anxious, because I was anxious in writing it. I could explore the kinds of things that can be done in the story when focusing on that slate of emotions as opposed to romantic emotions.”
Alyssa Cole on Leaning Into Anxiety
Predictions from the 1930s
In 1936, The Colophon, a now-defunct quarterly for book collectors, asked its readers to list ten authors “whose works would be considered classics in the year 2000.” Their first six answers hold up. The next four? Not so much.
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Your Words Here
For years, one of the best ways to make a living as a writer (if you didn’t want to go into academia) was to become an ad copywriter. They heyday of print was flush with opportunities to make bank off billboards and publications. At The Paris Review Daily, Dan Piepenbring looks back on the ad copy of Fay Weldon, who gave the UK, among other things, the slogan “Vodka makes you drunker quicker.” (Related: Hope Mills on working for a creative agency.)
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Edan Lepucki’s Novel Gets “The Colbert Bump”
“We’re going to prove that I can sell more books than Amazon,” Stephen Colbert announced during his show this week. And he’s going to do it by encouraging his audience to purchase California, the new novel by Millions staffer Edan Lepucki. On his website, Colbert has partnered with beloved Portland-based indie Powell’s Books to offer not just Edan’s novel, but also a downloadable pack [PDF] of stickers proudly proclaiming “I DIDN’T BUY IT ON AMAZON.” (For your part, you can also order the book on Barnes and Noble, Word Brooklyn, or your local bookstore and the stickers will still apply.) (Bonus: You can read the first chapter of the book over here.)
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List of Lengthy Books
In honor of our own Garth Risk Hallberg’s City on Fire (which stands at a hefty nine hundred pages), Bethanne Patrick has compiled a reading list of lengthy books at Lit Hub. You could also check out our interview with Hallberg.
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Jenny Offill and Jia Tolentino on Being Doomers at the Dinner Party
In this event recording, the writers discuss research rabbit holes and learn the presidential election results in real time.
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