Posts by author
Ian MacAllen
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What Should a Disney Princess Read?
Taking inspiration from Butterball’s Turkey Talk-Line, the emergency hotline that amateur cooks can call on Thanksgiving to get advice on not burning their bird, Penguin Publishing launched its own holiday helpline, offering book-buying recommendations for readers looking for the perfect book…
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Interest in Celebrities Wane
Readers have apparently grown tired of the celebrity memoir, with autobiographies and memoirs of famous people slowing in sales, reports the Guardian.
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Between Drafts
The cycle of writing, editing, and publishing often leads to down time between drafts. Over at Beyond the Margins, Marlene Adelstein talks about not writing during the down time between submitting a finished manuscript and waiting to hear back from agents…
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Getting Drunk with Bob Cratchit
Charles Dickens loves a good punch, and the alcoholic concoctions make appearances in many of his novels. The perhaps least fortunate of his characters, Bob Cratchit, drinks a punch made of gin and lemon. Although the text only refers to…
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Santa’s Little Helper
Santa’s elves spend all year manufacturing low-cost holiday decorations to bring Westerners Christmas cheer. The only problem? They aren’t elves, but Chinese factory workers. The Guardian explores life in the Chinese “Christmas Village” responsible for 60% of the world’s holiday…
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Notable NYC: 12/20–12/26
Saturday 12/20: Adam Gopnik, Mike Albo, Jami Attenberg, Charles Bock, Alexander Chee, Scott Cheshire, Ashley Ford, Lev Grossman, Rahawa Haile, Jazmine Hughes, Leslie Jamison, Bennett Madison, Ayana Mathis, Eileen Myles, Rosie Schaap, Elissa Schappell, Parul Sehgal, Rob Spillman, Emma Straub,…
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The Essay Makes a Comeback
2014 has already been called “The Year of the Debut” as a way of recognizing all the amazing debut novels published over the last twelve months. Now Jason Diamond is calling 2014 “The Year of the Essay,” pointing out the…
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The Clash of Civilizations
This past weekend saw the convergence of two disparate groups of people in New York City: the #MillionsMarch civil rights protesters and SantaCon participants. Laina Dawes takes a look at the two different groups over at Refinery29. Meanwhile, the drunk…
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The Evolution of Fairy Tales
Fairy tales are a fundamental part of the human experience, an extension of the oral traditions of the earliest storytellers, and part of culture that becomes internalized. In part, the importance of fairy tales is their ability to change with…
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The Rise and Fall of Alt Lit
The Alt Lit community brought together a disparate group of writers and poets from the sorts of backgrounds often ignored by mainstream literary fiction, leveraging the Internet and building a loyal and dedicated following. Then this fall, allegations of a…
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Notable NYC: 12/13–12/19
Saturday 12/13: Millions March New York City/Day of Anger in response to the police murders of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Akai Gurley, and others. Washington Square Park, 2 p.m., free. Jon Cotner guides a tour through his community for the…
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Hachette Turns to Twitter
Amazon and Hachette finally resolved their ongoing dispute last month, but the fracas served to illustrate the risk involved with relying on Amazon for such a huge portion of sales. As a result, Hachette is looking to diversify its digital…