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
“Life was not cake.”
Melville House has one of the short stories from Tao Lin’s Bed up for your noontime reading pleasure.
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What a Crack-Up
Did F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Crack-Up” essays — in which the author began to chronicle his mental collapse — usher in and anticipate the rise of autobiographical writing in America?
NY Approves the Rushdie Rip
Zoë Heller’s takedown of Salman Rushdie in the NYRB may yet ruffle some feathers, but for now it’s nabbed the top spot on New York Magazine’s approval matrix.
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The Graphics of Storytelling
The New York Times asked graphic artists if “the power of storytelling could be communicated in one panel,” and they responded in comics, of course. For more comics, read Paul Morton’s essay on the 25th anniversary of Drawn and Quarterly.
Hitchens on Cancer
Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair on his cancer diagnosis: “To the dumb question ‘Why me?’ the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?”
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Our Ramshackle Universe
“I’m writing about people. Man involved in the human dilemma, facing the problems bigger than he, whether he licks them or whether they lick him. But man as frail and fragile as he is, yet he will keep on trying to be brave and honest and compassionate, and that, to me, is very fine and very interesting — and that is the reason I think any writer writes.” William Faulkner on why writers write in a rare recording from the University of Virginia, via Brain Pickings.
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