Edward Jones: From MFA to Pulitzer in 22 Years (via Rarely Likable)
Month / September 2006
Grace Under Pressure
Paul Collins on being asked to name five books everyone should have. (via Jenny D)
Yesterday’s Ideals
From 1997: Marc Demarest’s “The Responsible Preparation of Electronic Literary Texts.” This essay is a response to Sven Birkets. One wonders whether Google Print or Bartleby took any of these considerations in mind.
Roundup
- I spent part of last weekend catching up on Y: The Last Man, which I’ve been greatly enjoying, in large part because of its wry literary references and because Brian K. Vaughan, much like Rupert Thomson, has managed to take a preposterous premise and make it work. Thankfully, Whitney Matheson tracked the man down for a podcast. (Unfortuntely, the format of the show is proprietary, the streaming player doesn’t seem to work, and I’m afraid and you have to load iTunes to get it. Two words, USA Today: PodPress plugin.)
- Scott goes ga-ga over Only Revolutions, suggesting that the book should come with “a coupon for a free weekend hotel room.”
- Pinky on trip books vs. MFA workshops.
- Daisy Goodwin, whose name sounds as if it’s been cobbled together from random horticultural coloring books, has announced that men cannot write romance and that male writers lacked insight into the ways of women. Of course, it should be pretty obvious to you readers that I don’t have a romantic bone in my body. Never have. And it’s all because I got one of those pesky penises at birth. I wonder then why 22% of romance readers are male. Could it be that a reader or a writer’s gender has nothing to do with it? To deflect Goodwin’s generalization, Gallecat is taking your calls. Which male writers handle romance well?
- Mark Z. Danielewski is interviewed at the Los Angeles Times and seems terrified of drunkards throwing darts.
- Clare Messud’s The Emperor’s Children gets love from George Will, of all people.
- Reading Matters has a series of profiles for the Booker Longlist. (via Metaxucafe)
- Has Douglas Coupland found literary respectability?
- Did Ted Hughes demand a “job description” from Sylvia Plath?
- Once again, someone asks: Has 9/11 demonstrated that truth is more compelling than fiction?
- The Secret Life of Jason Fortuny.
- Steve Irwin fans are now committing revenge attacks on stingrays. (via Warren Ellis)
- Do bookstore rewards programs actually save you money?
Not Even Dessert is Sacred
Nora Ephron: “Dessert spoons are large, oval-shaped spoons. They are so large that you could go for a swim in them. I’m not one of those people who like to blame the French for things, especially now that the French turned out to be so very very right about Iraq, but there’s no question this trend began in France, where they’ve always had a weakness for dessert spoons.”