At NPR, Beverly Jenkins, known as the queen of of Black historical romance, discusses the importance of the genre reflecting the identities of those who read it. “There’s a lot more African and African American women, women of color, all identities, really, now writing romance,” Jenkins says. “And that’s one of the great things about the genre. It’s starting to reflect the country.”
Beverly Jenkins on the Importance of Black 19th Century Romance
Behind the Screenwriter
Novelists, poets, and playwrights aren’t the only people who can call themselves writers. Don’t forget the oft begrudged screenwriters. The New York Times highlights 14 of this year’s best screenwriters, including Julie Deply and Seth Rogen, and asks them for writing advice and one original line of dialogue for some excellent short films. Our favorite short film is Robert Redford’s.
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Deft, Masterful
Passionate, intense, fearless … this essay on the history of book blurbs will have you positively clawing yourself with pleasure. We’ve blurbed about blurbs a couple of times here at The Millions.
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My Many Selves
Recommended Reading: This incredible profile of Maggie Nelson by Hilton Als for The New Yorker. Nelson’s The Red Parts saw a paperback reissue earlier this month.
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Link Bomb
The Columbia Spectator is about to embark on “a list of 50 books that we think capture the essence of each state.”Daniel Menaker, former head of Random House, is set to host a new internet literary talk show called “Titlepage.” It will be modeled after “‘Apostrophes,’ a popular French literary program; ‘The Charlie Rose Show’ on public television; and ‘Dinner for Five,’ in which a group of actors discussed their craft, on the Independent Film Channel.” Guests on the first show include Richard Price and literary it-boy Charles Bock.Quite a resource: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Among the many entries: Death, God and Other Necessary Beings, Nothingness.We Feel Fine: Art from the hive mind.Landscape Urbanism Bullshit GeneratorFree Rice: procrastination fun for those with big vocabularies.The Corporation of London Libraries and Guildhall Art Gallery image database – huge, searchable collection of historical images of London, from which one can order prints.The Port Huron Statement, a part of the UVA Sixties ProjectTen Recurring Economic Fallacies – Put to rest “The Broken Window,” “The Beneficence of War,” and more.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Cronin; Danler; Anderson; Busquets; Thorpe; Vyleta
Out this week: The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin; Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler; The Summer Guest by Alison Anderson; This Too Shall Pass by Milena Busquets; Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe; and Smoke by Dan Vyleta. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great 2016 Book Preview.
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The Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Poets wants to build The Bridge, a social networking site aimed at connecting student poets with mentor poets. The idea is that students could find mentors for less money than a workshop or writing program might cost, and that mentors would be able to get paid without having to locate a hard-to-find teaching job. You can get a fuller idea of the plan on the organization’s IndieGoGo page.
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