The Chronicle talks with Diana Abu-Jaber about Arab-American identity. She notes that since there are so few literary depictions of Arab life in America that she receives highly scrutinizing letters from readers niggling over the details. Abu-Jaber also points out that people consider her work highly politicized when it is not. According to Laila, she’s also a grand reader. Abu-Jaber has also recently launched a website, which will contain information on future appearances. There’s also an interview with Terry Gross up from March 2003.

The Sacramento Bee gets into the auctorial interview game and talks with Jane Smiley about how selling the film rights to A Thousand Acres has allowed her to write about horses. Smiley will be working on The Roan Tetrology through 2006. An early galley of the first book, My Kingdom for a Horse, features a 24-page monologue on why every American should own one.

Novelist E.L. Doctorow was booed at Columbia University while delivering a commencement speech attacking Bush. Financier George Soros offered a similar anti-Bush speech at Hofstra, but was not booed.

The New Yorker: “After directing the driver to East Seventy-second Street, she said she wanted to make it clear that, while she loves her bloggers, and has faith in them, it can be difficult to get them to be productive. ‘They all have day jobs,’ she pointed out. Writing anything longer than a blog post is a commitment they don’t always seem up for.”