Jennifer Egan says that Goon Squad could have been better and talks about the danger of applause, in an excerpt from Why We Write, and anthology featuring some of the most acclaimed writers of our time, including Rumpus regular Rick Moody.
A good week over at my other home, The Nervous Breakdown. Jessica Blau’s infamous Six Question Sex Interview column at The Nervous Breakdown gets zombie-nasty with Sean Beaudoin. (I think I’m next in this line-up…)
Mag Gabbert debuts with the powerful “Our Waking Life.”
And another Rumpus fave, Joshua Mohr, submits to the self-interview…with chaps. Josh will be talking with Anisse Gross soon for the Sunday Rumpus, so stay tuned.
On The Millions, Michael Bourne writes on the latest Oprah’s Book Club selection, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, and dissects why it’s time readers of literary fiction cut Oprah some slack. Fun to see this piece open up with my former literary agent, Ellen Levine, who really is just a ridiculously lovely person.
Amidst today’s evolving definitions of what constitutes sex, Salon asks “What’s a “first time,” anyway?”
25 Truths About Publishing? It made quite a buzz on Twitter, but I couldn’t bring myself to read it. You decide.
And did you hear that JK Rowling fell off Forbes’ billionaire list because she donated so much to charity? How cool is that?
Stephen is cranking with these cool short films…here’s Mistress.
I’m taking a little time off…no curated essays/interviews/fiction/reviews today. Apologies–I hate to let a Sunday go by without showcasing something-and-someone awesome here. But it’s one of those things where Life has me against the wall. My mom’s been in a temporary nursing home for a month now, unable to put any weight on her foot after an accident, and I’ve been the sole caretaker for my 91-year-old disabled father while she’s gone, plus I’m on deadline for my novel edits at Algonquin. I’m just going to have to switch into a lower gear for the next few weeks. Luckily, a call for submissions on Facebook (I know, what the hell was I thinking?) has me so bombarded with Sunday Rumpus submissions that once I’m back in the swing of things, there should be a lot of new faces to flash around. Looking forward to it.