Posts by author
Ian MacAllen
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Book Tour Ticketgate
Lena Dunham launched her collection of personal essays, Not that Kind of Girl, yesterday. At NPR, the filmmaker, actress, and author discusses oversharing, sexual assault, and pornography. Dunham did not get through the week without controversy, though. Gawker wrote up a click-bait attack…
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Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Manuscript
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle left an original manuscript of a Sherlock Holmes story to his daughter, who in turn left it to the Nation of Scotland. Then the manuscript sat in a bank vault. Conan Doyle studied medicine in Edinburgh…
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The 24 Amtrak Residents
Earlier this year, Alexander Chee tweeted about his enjoyment of writing on trains. Amtrak jumped aboard and decided to launch an Amtrak residency program granting writers free, multi-day train rides where they could write. Amtrak has announced the first 24…
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For Whom Amazon Tolls
As the Amazon versus Hachette dispute drags on into its fifth month, Alex Shepard, over at Melville House, examines the conflict, and what it means for publishers and authors: Traditional publishers can’t do what Amazon does; Amazon can’t do what traditional…
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Notable NYC: 9/27–10/3
Saturday 9/27: Dylan Landis reads Rainey Royal (September 2014). BookCourt, 7 p.m., free. Anselm Berrigan, Sapphire, and Katrin Tschirgi celebrate the release of the latest issue of Washington Square. NYU Creative Writers House, 7 p.m., free. Sunday 9/28: Melissa Adamo, Alex…
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Poetic Side-Effects
A 76-year-old woman suffering from epileptic seizures was placed on medication with an unusual side-effect: the compulsion to write poetry. The condition, known as hypergraphia, led the woman to write 10 to 15 poems per day. Her urges have since…
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Banned Books Week: A Rumpus Roundup
Sunday marked the start of Banned Books Week, a celebration of freedom, and a recognition of the threat of censorship. Libraries around the US are hosting events. Books are banned for a variety of reasons, and by a variety of organizations.…
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Speed Reading the Man-Booker Shortlist
To test reading software Spritz, an app that helps readers achieve high words-per-minute rates, Rob Boffard decided to start with the Man-Booker shortlist. He used the program to read Joshua Ferris’s 110,000 word novel To Rise Again at a Decent…
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YA Lit Tackles Modern Concerns
Plenty of critics have lamented the rise of Young Adult literature, but its popularity isn’t accidental. The genre is focusing on contemporary problems and, more importantly, manifesting them in easily digestible ways that appeal not just to teens, but to…
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Classic Literature Or Social Construct?
Classic literature is neither timeless nor fundamental. Writing is bound by its place in history, both as we read it and as it was written, and the idea of a universal experience is simply another construct of the dominant culture,…
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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Hamlet
Shakespeare is invading China. The first complete Chinese translation of the works of Shakespeare wasn’t released until 1967, but Britain’s number one dramatist is now starting to catch the attention of Chinese audiences, reports Melville House’s Moby Lives, saying Shakespeare…
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Notable NYC: 9/20–9/26
Saturday 9/20: Amber Atiya, Keegan Lester, Emily Present, Cecily Iddings, Katie Fowley, Liz Clark Wessel, Lucia Stacey, Anna Marschalk-Burns, Alexis Pope, Amy Lawless, and Bridget Talone celebrate the latest issue of The Atlas Review. BookCourt, 7 p.m., free. Paulo Scott,…