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Join NOW!Chinua Achebe was briefly interviewed in NYT Magazine last week. In the interview he talks about current Nigerian politics, focusing on the weakness of the Nigerian Acting President, Good Luck Jonathan, who “suddenly doesn’t seem to bring good luck.” Click here to learn more.
...more“To become a literary star, having talent helps, but so does carving out a place in the tangled, incestuous web of the publishing world. Our interactive field guide illustrates how 10 young authors with potential best-sellers coming out this Spring and Summer fit into the firmament.” Therefore, Vanity Fair has made an interactive map filled […]
...moreIn what The New York Times‘ Patricia Cohen writes is “the Great Train Robbery of French intellectual life: thousands of treasured documents[…] vanished from the Institut de France in the mid-1800s, stolen by an Italian mathematician.” Before the publication of his famed Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes was documented writing numerous correspondences, amounting to precisely 72 […]
...moreD.A. Powell wrote – a few years ago now – a column for The Poetry Foundation in which he dabbles with the idea of street poetry (think along the lines of the tape poetry of Elvis Christ). Powell’s article was called “Conceptual Poetics: A Practicum.” In it he writes:
...moreRumpus contributor Craig Fehrman has an article running over at The Hartford Advocate about the controversy surrounding Brain McDonald’s In The Middle of the Night. McDonald’s book is a true crime novel about a terrible murder that occurred in the town of Cheshire, Connecticut. Apparently, the town librarian ordered the book for the library, and that didn’t […]
...moreAt 106 years old, Alice Herz-Sommer is profiled in Haaretz. She is a musician, Holocaust survivor, and is also said to be the last living acquaintance of Kafka.
...moreOur chums over at HTMLGIANT have blown the soot off an interview with Andy Warhol conducted by the Bay Times in 1965. In it, they discuss the difference between cutting one or two mushrooms (and the time the cuts take), the color of the interviewers eyes, and the non-definition of pop art.
...moreThe next time you crack an egg, either over the presumably safe stove in your cozy sublet kitchen, or with one of the (most-likely three) prongs of your smudged fork into the bubbled yoke of some over-easy-eggs at the neighborhood diner, you should think about H1N1 (swine flu, ya’ll) and how its vaccine is created. […]
...more“There’s been a paradigm shift,” Ms. Levent continued. “People are starting to accept the fact that art and imagery are mental and not visual” and that “the heart of the creative work has nothing to do with sight. Artists’ choices are internal.” The New York Times has an article about a gallery show consisting of […]
...moreIn the New York Times Sunday Book Review, Stephen King has written a review of Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life by Carol Sklenicka. King begins with a summation of Carver’s semi-amazing alcoholism and then moves on to a dissection of Carver’s relationship with his editor Gordon Lish. It’s moving, the way King writes about Lish’s […]
...more“People want peace, and when given a voice, they’ll work tirelessly for it,” said Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson. “In the short term, a Twitter account may be no match for an AK-47, but in the long term the keyboard is mightier than the sword.” Following this rationale, Wired has created a petition working to nominate the […]
...moreJoyland, the literary magazine/website that’s “a hub for short fiction,” has opened up a new tab on their website for San Francisco. So for all you SF based writer types: keep in mind that Joyland is looking for submissions.
...moreThe Guardian has a pleasant, long profile of Maya Angelou running in which she proclaims such niceties as “I’m fine as wine in summertime.” The profile covers many topics: giving a brief history of her career, the whole Hilary versus Barack debacle, poetry, and many many other ‘fine as wine’ subjects. Want more? Click here.
...moreThe Wall Street Journal‘s John Jurgensen has a wonderful interview with Cormac McCarthy up on their website. In it, they gab about the difference between movies and books, which pertains to the new movie adaptation of McCarthy’s book The Road, God, children, and a whole lot of other literature-ish topics. There is a simplicity to […]
...moreSan Franciscan essayist and poet W.S. Di Piero has written an poetical rhythmic essay about his jaunts throughout this mounded metropolis a great many of us call home. In it, he writes:
...moreRutgers University Press has published the book Dedicated To The People of Darfur: Writings on Fear, Risk, and Hope which includes a smattering of notable authors such as the late Frank McCourt, Jane Smiley and frequent Rumpus contributor Steve Almond. Participants have written essays on “taking risks, breaking past boundaries in all areas and avenues […]
...moreShya Scanlon has written an essay for The Faster Times entitled “Stay Tuned: on the Future of Web Serialization.” The essay is about the different types of literary serialization Scalon has noticed on the net. Though Scalon admits that it might’ve been there before but he didn’t see it, he tells us that once he […]
...moreAt the website for the PEN American Center they’ve posted the audio and a transcription of Jonathan Ames reading FBI emails from Guantanamo Bay. There is something strangely enlightening about Ames’ drone. It’s almost judgement-less, allowing the listener to listen to the emails and receive them in a personal, individual, way—as if they were sent […]
...moreOver at FLATMANCROOKED, Aaron Davidson writes about his pleasing experience using Stanza: an iPhone application used primarily for reading books. Specifically, Davidson muses upon his reading of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, and comments upon how strangely succinct of a choice it was, writing: “The narrative describes a mythic technology and the exploration of the […]
...moreOver at The Millions, C. Max Magee has written an article about what being awarded the Nobel Prize does for a book and its publisher from an American perspective. Being that American literature is rarely rewarded the prestigious prize, Magee writes, “Sometimes the Nobel plays this role – a validator of critical opinion – but, […]
...moreStephen Marche has an article in the Wall Street Journal about how, as of now, “the Kindle 2 will become the first e-reader available globally. The only other events as important to the history of the book are the birth of print and the shift from the scroll to bound pages.” Marche follows his bold […]
...moreOver at Mind Hacks they’ve got a post running called “A brain signature for literacy.” It’s covering a neuroscience study done that shows “how the structure of the brain changes as illiterate adults learn to read and write.” What’s fascinating is who participated in the study, which were mostly “ex-members of guerilla forces in Colombia […]
...moreOver at NPR is an interview with Chinua Achebe, author of Things Fall Apart. In the article, which is accompanied by an audio interview with Achebe, he talks about his relationship with Joseph Conrad’s 1902 novella Heart of Darkness. According to NPR, “Though Achebe was attracted to Conrad’s books as a child, he excoriated it […]
...moreOver at Riku Writes, Richard Hourula has posted “Movies For Your Inner Leftist, That Are Suitable For All Political Persuasions.” In the piece Hourula offers little write ups on left leaning movies, some historically, some not. I mean, did you know about Hitler’s fondness for Gary Cooper? So, if you like movies that feed that […]
...moreOver at Open, the British writer Sebastian Horsley, who claims to have slept with 1,300 prostitutes, writes an article explaining his reasoning. Horsley dabbles on a plethora of topics pertaining to his love of prostitution and he implores us all to keep it illegal. For him, the illegality of it is a major part of […]
...moreThe folks at Greencine posted an interview with Michael Stulhbarg, the star of the new Coen Brothers movie A Serious Man. In the interview, Greencine and Stulbarg gab about how the movie is being labeled as a ‘starless’ film, Stulbarg’s strange 9-month auditioning process, the Coen’s process on set, and other interesting cinema tidbits. Check […]
...moreThe guys over at largehearted boy are running a contest inspired by the many films based on Nick Hornby’s novels. All you need to do to enter is let them know your favorite book to film adaptation. The winner of the contest get’s the new Hornby book, Juliet, Naked, in which Hornby “again paints a […]
...moreIn an article for The New Yorker, Caleb Crain writes about the art that arose from overwhelming suffering and poverty of The Great Depression. From the invention of the screwball comedy to the self-conscious prose of James Agree, Crain explores the various—and at times conflicting—efforts artists used to deal with the realities of the era. […]
...moreThe New York Times has an article running about “vooks”: a book that has videos incorporated within. The article strives to illuminate the argument that in a technology-oriented world, books—for the first time—are going to have to adapt as a medium in order to successfully compete and survive in this changing world. Judith Curr, publisher […]
...moreOn the cover of Rob Riemen’s Nobility of Spirit: A Forgotten Ideal, a blurb from Mark Sarvos of the blog The Elegant Variation graces its bottom left corner. On his website, Brian Sholis (writer and former editor of Artforum) asks the question: do blog blurbs belong on books? Over yonder at The Elegant Variation, Sarvos responds.
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