Abby Geni of The Rumpus Book Club will be chatting with club members tomorrow…today we have the phenomenal Karen Bender talking with Abby to wet your whistle. (Um, I think I have been waiting my whole life for a chance to use that phrase!)
So I’m announcing it here before it debuts on our website once it’s updated within the month, but Other Voices Queretaro has added Emily Rapp and Cecil Castellucci to our 2014 faculty, which already includes Rob Roberge, Stacy Bierlein and of course…well, me. Emily will be teaching nonfiction, Rob’s on fiction, and Cecil’s workshop will welcome various forms of writing for older kids and young adults, including graphic novels. I cannot believe this shit is real. I’m so happy. Come play with us, June 27-July 6…
Are you a “writer of color?” A “woman writer?” Does it matter, and why? Roxane Gay interrogates labels at The Nation.
“Literary” reading in the United States down to 47% of the population, according to the NEA’s latest study. Wow.
PEN Literary Awards call for submissions.
And the Dzanc Books Non-Fiction Competition.
My seven-year-old son is obsessed with iced chai. So of course there’s this, on caffeine and brain development.
I can’t believe I’m missing WeHo as we speak, and then Litcrawl LA next month.
Tyler McMahon gets behind the rivalry between The Beatles vs. The Stones, over at The Weeklings.
Melissa Chadburn explores how to get out of the slushpile.
Cheryl Strayed issue of Best American Essays looks so amazing it’s criminal. Congrats Tod Goldberg, Megan Stielstra, Kevin Sampsell, Vanessa Veselka, and all the other brilliant writers included.
Speaking of Cheryl, here is Reese Witherspoon getting her fake feet made for the forthcoming film of Wild.
A stunning essay by Mag Gabbert, “Split Feather,” over at The Nervous Breakdown.
And a heartbreakingly beautiful elegy for the poet Kofi Awoonor, killed in the attacks in Nairobi. I spent a fair amount of time at Westgate mall when I was out there in 2010, which of course makes it absolutely no more or less horrific that such terror took place there, but brings it closer to my monkeysphere, which always makes things hit harder somehow.