The Great Frustration
Seth Fried’s debut collection The Great Frustration mixes and matches his gonzo hijinx with a deft emotional darkness.
...morePosts by: Salvatore Pane
The Rumpus Interview with Mike Rosenthal
While working on an interview with the Great Gatsby video game folks, this wonderfully clever Waiting for Godot game went viral on the web.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Peter Smith and Charlie Hoey, the Brains Behind the Great Gatsby Game
When you think about The Great Gatsby, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Booze? Flappers? Car crashes?
...moreWomen and Criticism
The always reputable Bookslut delivers a 23 point essay about women and criticism by Alizah Salario She checks in on Black Swan, The New Yorker, Franzenfreude and even our own Stephen Elliot’s thoughts on women in publishing.
...moreWin the Internet
The good folks at Thought Catalog–including writers like Blake Butler, Tao Lin, and Jimmy Chen among others–break down the different types of people you can find on the internet. Do you think you’ve “won the internet”? Find out.
...moreNanny Posthumously Declared Photography Luminary
You have to read this undeniably strange tale over on the BBC about Vivian Maier, a suddenly revered photographer who died in obscurity. Four years ago, real estate agent John Maloof purchased the contents of an abandoned storage unit which he thought was filled with “negatives of historical architecture photographs” But what the unit actually […]
...moreWriters Unite to Save Harper’s Editors
Jonathan Lethem, Sam Lipsyte, George Saunders, Zadie Smith and others have all signed an open letter to Harper’s publisher John MacArthur to save the jobs of editors Ben Metcalf and Ted Ross. Now, in an update to the article, MacArthur has responded.
...moreLavender Panthers 4 EVA
Check out this absolutely insane 1973 Time story about the Lavender Panthers, a gay vigilante group who went around San Fransisco stopping hate crimes. Led by Rev. Ray Broshears, the Lavender Panthers were experts in “judo, karate, Kung Fu or plain old alley fighting” and possessed a shotgun that could “leave a hole in a […]
...moreThe Birth of David Foster Wallace Studies
There’s an interesting article in The Chronicle Review about the rise of David Foster Wallace studies in the wake of the author’s death. Lit scholars discuss the proliferation of the field and how much of its research has roots in early Internet listservs. And of course there’s squabble about Pale King, DFW’s yet to be […]
...moreZadie Smith and Nathan Englander
Check out this video of a conversation between Zadie Smith and Nathan Englander. The duo discusses David Foster Wallace, James Baldwin and more.
...moreThe Exonerated’s Struggle
Great article over on the ABA Journal about the struggle of exonerated prisoners post-release. Freed prisoners talk about the many difficulties of returning to the real world including not being able to operate cell phones or computers and even how tough it is just to get a driver’s license.
...moreJesus Loves Sex Workers
It’s the question we’ve all asked ourselves at some point: what WOULD Jesus do about prostitution? Over on Salon, Tracy Clark-Flory profiles former prostitute and Hookers For Jesus rep Annie Lobert who claims to have the answer. [SPOILER ALERT: “God loooves sex!”]
...more“This is what strong families do in crisis: They adapt and roles change.”
Read this powerful essay by Tracy Clark-Flory about her mother’s battle with third stage lung cancer and her father’s attempt to maintain some level of normalcy during the Christmas holidays.
...moreHelp Dean Young
Poet Dean Young needs your help. Afflicted with a degenerative heart condition, Young “needs to get a heart transplant soon, or go to drastic measures like a mechanical external pump.” And surely, we all know this story: Young has health insurance, but of course, it’s not going to cover the entirety of his massive bill. […]
...more“Fill your hand, you son of a bitch.”
Really informative essay over at The New York Times about Charles Portis, author of True Grit, the novel that inspired the John Wayne classic and the Coen brothers redo. NYT writer Carlo Rotella relays his own person meetings with Portis and goes so far as to claim True Grit stands as the “the great comic […]
...moreKiller App: The Novel
Check out this awesome essay from Alexander Chee about his decision to move to e-books and his burgeoning Internet addiction. The Spark Notes version? Chee lives in a cramped New York apartment. Ten more books added to an already massive collection will deliver him into “crisis.” Ever have this problem, readers? Would you ever consider […]
...moreThe End of Music Piracy: Oh Shit It’s the Cops II
First, Laura Miller declared the end of NaNoWriMo. Now, Wired declares the end of music piracy. Citing the phasing out of DRM, the improved sound quality of iTunes downloads, the beefed up music library, and even a plea to individual reader ethics, Paul Boutin argues that it’s time for pirates to forfeit their Cold War-era […]
...more“The Sum of All Books Present in the Shared Human Consciousness”
Check out The New York Journal of Books where Joseph Mackin delivers a treatise on the book review. What is the purpose of the book review anyway? Do they serve to introduce the general public to another addition to “the sum of all books present in the shared human consciousness”? Or are the reviews so […]
...moreSalman Rushdie’s Big Think
“If Saul Bellow wants to write a novel set in Africa he feels free to do so, whereas sometimes if the reverse happens, if a third-world writer wishes to set a novel in Illinois, he might be asked what he thinks he is doing.” Over at Big Think, Salman Rushdie gives his thoughts on dating, […]
...moreVideo Games: The Future of Journalism?
Are news video games the next step in the evolution of journalism? According to Ian Bogost and the Georgia Institute of Technology they are. At the New Scientist, Bogost highlights two such games: Burger Tycoon in which players raise cattle in South Africa to produce fatty foods for global dissemination, and Escape From Woomera, a […]
...moreEveryone Is Hunting for Identity
Over at Guernica, Sarah Layden interviews the incomparable Aimee Bender about her new novel The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, David Foster Wallace and time capsules. Peep it here.
...moreThe Fight for Erotica
Government censorship can’t happen in America, right? According to writer Marilyn Jaye Lewis, it can. She sheds light on the erotica community’s recent struggle with government censorship and why all writers need to be more conscious of first amendment rights online in the years ahead.
...moreMove Bush’s Book
Remember W.? Our boy’s new memoir, Decision Points, is slated to drop tomorrow, and folks are protesting its release by pledging to subversively move the book to shops’ crime section. What do you say? Want to do some sneaky book-switching at a Barnes and Nobles near you?
...moreNational Novel Writing Month:
Oh Shit It’s the Cops!
Over on Salon, Laura Miller bashes NaNoWriMo calling the whole endeavor “a waste of time of energy” that proves “that the cultural spaces once dedicated to the selfless art of reading are being taken over by the narcissistic commerce of writing.” In response, Jacket Copy’s Carolyn Kellogg argues against Miller’s article point by point. She […]
...moreAdopt an Endangered Word
Save the Words is a new web-based campaign to save endangered words. According to their website, hundreds of long out-of-use words are deleted from the dictionary every year leaving us with only 7,000 accounting for almost all of our daily communication. To get involved, all you have to do is cruise on over to their […]
...moreA Surfboard Not an Ark: Reflections on Electric Literature
Andy Hunter, editor of the brilliant lit mag Electric Literature, gives Publisher’s Weekly an informative retrospective on his journal and his thoughts about the future of publishing. For those unaware, you can purchase print copies of Electric Literature, PDFs, or even app versions of the issues on mobile devices. In an era when so many […]
...morePodcast Q&A With Paris Review Editor Lorin Stein
Over at Hot Metal Bridge, Steve Gillies hits us with a podcast version of a Q&A with Lorin Stein. Introduced by author Chuck Kinder, Lorin Stein talks with the book review editor of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and chats about Freedom and the future of the publishing industry.
...moreDonate to Pop Serial and Get Free Swag
For those unaware, Pop Serial is a limited edition lit journal published by the one and only Stephen Dierks (peep his work here). Their second issue features the work of such notable writers as Tao Lin, Frank Hinton, Noah Cicero and Jordan Castro. Dierks is hunting for ten dollar donations to go toward the issue’s […]
...moreI’m On a Cataclysm Kick: Philip Roth on Aging Novelists and His New Book “Nemesis”
My boy P. Roth hits David Ulin and the LA Times with a superb interview in anticipation of his latest novel Nemesis. He chats up imagined apocalypse, the absence of god, losing energy and more: “I don’t know what causes me to want to imagine some hell that didn’t happen… but I think in a […]
...moreGet a Tattoo AND Books For Life!
You a fan of the publisher Two Dollar Radio? Want a free lifetime subscription to all their books? All you have to do is tattoo their logo onto your body and bam, books for life. Two Dollar author Joshua Mohr now brandishes the boom box logo on his wrist and had this to say: “The […]
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