One Chance to Make a First Impression
An editor’s first look at a writer’s work is in the query letter. Steph Auteri, writing in Ploughshares, explains how writers can improve their introductions, and why it matters when…
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Ian MacAllen
1314 posts
Ian MacAllen is the author of Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American (Rowman & Littlefield, April 2022). His writing has appeared in Chicago Review of Books, Southern Review of Books, The Offing, 45th Parallel Magazine, Little Fiction, Vol 1. Brooklyn, and elsewhere. Find him at IanMacAllen.com.
Exploring San Francisco with Gary Kamiya
This week, San Francisco’s Hattery will host Gary Kamiya, cofounder of Salon.com and author of Cool, Gray City of Love (2013), an exploration of San Francisco from 49 different perspectives. Kamiya…
Remembering Gabriel García Márquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude author Gabriel García Márquez passed away last week at the age of 87. Writing in the New Yorker, Edwidge Danticat reflects on his life and…
Notable NYC: 4/19–4/25
Saturday 4/19: Chris Sylvester, Holly Melgard, Joey Yearous-Algozin, Jordan Dunn, and Eddie Hopely read at part three of the Brooklyn Poetry Summit. BookThugNation, 7:30 p.m., free. David Abel, Anna Vitale,…
First Novels and the Art of Revision
Most first novels are really second novels, since most first novels go unpublished. Writing for ZYZZYVA, Rumpus contributor Aaron Gilbreath talks through his experience having his debut memoir rejected, eventually…
The Tale of Two Community Bookstores
Brooklyn has two independent Community bookstores—Park Slope’s Community Bookstore and Cobble Hill’s The Community Bookstore. John Scioli, owner of the latter, tells MobyLives that he founded the original with his…
Amazon Guilt
We’ve all felt a little bit guilty saving a few pennies buying from Amazon rather than our neighborhood independent bookseller. But what about Amazon employees—do they experience guilt when shopping…
All the Shades of Black and White
Writing for The New Inquiry, Hannah Black explores race in Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird and the relationship of white, black, and mixed racial identities in modern western culture. Similarly,…
How to Love a Writer
Writers are not the easiest people to fall in love with. Many of the characteristics of a great writer also make for a horrific companion. Over at Ploughshares, Amber Kelly-Anderson explores some…
The High Cost of Literary Journals
Michael Nye, managing editor of The Missouri Review, explains some of the costs required to start and operate a literary journal. Financial issues are the fastest way to kill a…
Fiction is Fiction
What does “realism” mean, anyway? Over at Ploughshares, Rumpus contributor and Gigantic magazine editor Lincoln Michel discusses the problems of the term “realism” when it comes to literature: I tend…
Is There Too Much Translation?
Writing over at Brooklyn Quarterly, Will Evans discusses why he founded a publishing house dedicated to translation: In addition to being a philosophical problem, literary translation is also a contentious business matter.…