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
The Return of Binge Reading
Novelist Ben Dolnick makes the case for indulging in a good binge-reading session.
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Never Enough Karen Russell
Karen Russell is everywhere these days. She’s sharing her favorite books about Florida with The New York Times, she’s being interviewed about her writing process on our site, and she’s publishing short fiction for Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading blog. Oh, and she has a new book out, too, as you might have heard.
‘There is no sincerer love than the love of food’ – Shaw
Lapham’s Quarterly has released their Summer 2011 issue. Its topic? Food. They’ve even compiled the issue’s entire bibliography in case you’re interested.
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Abramson Taking Over at the Times
Big media news today: “Jill Abramson, a former investigative reporter and Washington bureau chief for The New York Times, will become the paper’s executive editor, succeeding Bill Keller, who is stepping down to become a full-time writer for the paper.”
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You Are the Best People
“I am sitting at the open window (at four a.m.) and breathing the lovely air of a spring morning. Life is still good, and it is worth living on a May morning – I assert that life is beautiful in spite of everything! … In a word, there are many thorns, but the roses are there too.” These excerpts from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s letters are just gorgeous.
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Murakami on 1Q84
A blogger translates a long Murakami interview about 1Q84 (scroll down for parts I, II, and III). (via)
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All Our Kids
Margaret Atwood wants to edit the Canadian national anthem. The MaddAddam author and Year in Reading alum thinks a phrase in the current lyrics — “true patriot love in all thy sons’ command” — needs to be changed to something more gender-neutral.
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