I can’t think of anybody I’d be more intimidated to interview than Philip Roth. He won the National Book Award at twenty-seven and later the Pulitzer; he has thirty books under his belt and has become throbbing heart of American literati. …more

Franz Kafka, a hunch-backed best friend, a violated will, an escape from Nazis, ten safe-deposit boxes spanning two countries, smuggled papers, missing letters, fifty feet of files, four Israeli lawyers, and ‘an untold number’ (40-100) of cats: the eighty-six-years-worth the characters in the journey of Kafka’s unpublished work.

In what reads like a detective story, Elif Batuman’s recent article in The New York Times, “Kafka’s Last Trial,” is a thrilling, comprehensive account of the life and work of one of history’s most mysterious writers. …more

How do we write?

Supposedly Benjamin Franklin, after depriving himself of sleep, would sit with metal balls in his hands, his arms dangling at his sides.  He would fall asleep, the balls would hit the floor: Ben would wake, snatch up a pen, and begin writing whatever rushing thought filled his head that somnolent moment.  Very differently, Balzac would slug down something like thirty cups of coffee, masturbate until he was about to orgasm, halt, write, and repeat.  For these writers, the method was to write at the precipice of some strained psychological or physical state (deprivation). …more

“Remember, Lord, my ship is small and thy sea is so wide!” – Joshua Slocum, sailing through a storm south of Tierra del Fuego.

When Joshua Slocum (author of Sailing Alone Around the World, first published in Great Britain by Sampson Law in 1900) arrived in Apia, Samoa at the house of Robert Louis Stevenson on July 16, 1896, he was a third of the way to becoming first person to sail single-handedly around the world. …more

England: land of quibblers.

Some of the nation’s top writers are at the throat of the present tense. Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, said, “I just don’t read present-tense novels any more. It’s a silly affectation, in my view, and it does nothing but annoy.” …more