At the Los Angeles Times, Charles Yu discusses the novelistic techniques he employs in his television writing and, conversely, how his TV projects influence his fiction. “I find myself trying to import skills and tools from scripts to novels and back again,” Yu says. “From TV I’ve learned about structure and outlining and how to thread multiple storylines through a longer work. Going in the other direction, I try to find ways to incorporate my voice, my tone and a sense of being experimental from my books into my TV projects.”
Charles Yu on Switching Between TV and Novel Writing
A Stake in the Conflict
Reporting on a war in your homeland is tricky business, but in the fifties, Albert Camus (whose collected articles on the Algerian War of Independence are now available in book form) managed, in spite of his investment in the conflict, to get it right.
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It Might as Well Be Sentient
This is really happening: In February, an IBM-programmed computer will take on former champions (including Ken Jennings) in three games of Jeopardy. (via)
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Olga Tokarczuk on the Coherent Cosmos of Leonora Carrington
Olga Tokarczuk reflects on the "wild metaphysics" of Leonora Carrington’s 1974 surrealist novel, The Hearing Trumpet.
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“My school was on fire.”
Recommended Reading: Everything being written by Delaney Nolan – the most recent example of which being “I Was a Teenage Arsonist.”
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Stalker Sunday
In celebration of Geoff Dyer‘s Zona, discussed on The Millions here and here, Galley Cat is hosting an online viewing party of Tarkovsky‘s Stalker this Sunday.