Posts by author
Ian MacAllen
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There Are No Universal Books
There’s been much debate about the merits of trigger warnings on college campuses recently. Such suggestions drew the ire of both conservatives and liberals, with one college professor going so far as to offer a mock syllabus containing warnings on historical events. Phoebe…
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Reading for the Numbers
Former child star Wil Wheaton read twenty-one books last year, meeting his annual goal on GoodReads of twenty books. Then the Internet flogged him for having a goal of only twenty books, and because three of those books were graphic…
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Notable NYC: 6/28–7/4
Saturday 6/28: Popsickle Five literary arts festival. Forgotten Works Studio, 1 p.m., free. Sunday 6/29: Popsickle Five literary arts festival. Berl’s Poetry Shop, 3 p.m., free. CLMP hosts the The Giant Lit Mag fair. Get issues of dozens of different…
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Amazon Opens Eastern Front
As Amazon and Hachette continue to battle it out, the online retailer has opened an eastern front, delaying shipments from Bonnier, a German publishing group. The German Publishers and Booksellers Association has filed an anti-trust complaint. Amazon, of course, denies the accusation.…
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Popsickle Literary Arts Festival Returns
Popsickle, Brooklyn’s literary arts festival, returns for its fifth iteration this weekend. Organized by Rumpus contributor Niina Pollari and JD Scott, Popsickle brings together many of the borough’s best publications and reading series including Brooklyn Poets, The Bushwick Review, Mellow…
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Indie Bookstores Win Amazon/Hachette War
The ongoing battle between Amazon and Hachette has been a boon for independent booksellers. Hachette’s refusal to capitulate to Amazon’s demands has meant that big-name books, like J.K. Rowling’s latest mystery The Silkworm (published under the pen name Robert Galbraith), can’t be…
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Steve Almond and the Irresistible Narrator
Writer and Rumpus contributor Steve Almond has a handful of spaces left in two classes he’s teaching at the Grotto in San Francisco on July 19. How to Write Riveting Scenes examines some of the best scenes written in literature…
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Digital Age Changes Writing
Technology has changed the way writers write, and that change is not just about the rise of e-books. Composition in a digital world is much more malleable and fluid, and changes in methodology alter the structure of sentences and words.…
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The Stephen King Money
Emily Schultz published her novel, Joyland, eight years ago. Stephen King published a novel by the same name in 2013. Schultz’s novel suddenly started selling rapidly on Amazon as confused readers mistakenly purchased her book instead of King’s, and when many…
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Book of Oaths
Suzi LeVine became the first U.S. Ambassador sworn into office on a Kindle. She also took her oath of office not on the Bible, but on the U.S Constitution (open to the Nineteenth Amendment, the amendment granting women the right…
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Not Writing to Write Better
Julia Fierro has a debut novel Cutting Teeth, but for much of the last decade, the writer was so dispirited by the rejection of her first manuscript that she stopped writing. Instead, she launched Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop, a Brooklyn-based writing…
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Notable NYC: 6/21–6/27
Saturday 6/21: Jeff Dolven, Kathleen Ossip, and Thomas Heis celebrate two decades of independent poetry with Sarabande Books. Berl’s Poetry, 7 p.m., free. Sunday 6/22: Lorin Roser, Russell Leong, Luis H. Francia, and Larry Litt combine poetry with experimental music.…