17-year-old Bebe Zeva is the subject of the second documentary from MDMAfilms. You can see clips here. MDMAfilms is the project of newly-married writers Tao Lin and Megan Boyle. They film their movies on a laptop. …more

Last Friday night, for about one hour, Richard Ford asked Shirley Hazzard questions about her life and her writing. It was part of the PEN World Voices Festival. It cost $20.

Shirley Hazzard walked onstage with a cane in one hand and her black purse in the other. Her hair is red. She’s 79. She kept the purse beside her in the chair and sometimes gripped its strap as she spoke. “I’m so glad to see you, thank you for coming,” she told the audience. Salman Rushdie was there. …more

In his much celebrated third novel, Netherland, Irish-born Joseph O’Neill writes:

“Not counting the lobby, the Chelsea Hotel had ten floors. Each was served by a dim hallway that ran from an air shaft on one side to, on my floor, a door with a yellowing pane of frosted glass that suggested the ulterior presence of a private detective rather than, as was actually the case, a fire escape. The floors were linked by a baronial staircase, which by virtue of the deep rectangular void at its center had the effect of installing a precipice at the heart of the building. On all the walls was displayed the vaguely alarming art-work of tenants past and present. The finest and most valuable examples were reserved for the lobby: I shall never forget the pink, plump girl on a swing who hovered above the reception area gladly awaiting a push towards West Twenty-third Street.” …more