Welcome to the known world, deepest living thing! Let’s talk about profanity in the New Yorker. Fact: there are some very large numbers in the world. Coming soon: actual useful…
Am I the only person who thinks falconry is fascinating? I probably shouldn’t be linking to Polaroids from the set of Blade Runner, but I am going to. By the…
The most important—and surprising—thing about this issue of The Paris Review: Roberto Bolaño’s lost novel. This is very exciting for fans of the Chilean writer (I happen to be a…
Jonathan Franzen dispensed some optimistic guidance in a NY Times Op-Ed essay, an adaptation of his recent commencement speech to Kenyon graduates. He covers techno-consumerism, the environmentalist anger that once…
At Backdoor Review, we receive tens of thousands of submissions. We’ve collected a few cover letters and reprinted them now (without permission) with manuscript comments from our editors in italics.
The New Yorker’s history of expletive usage and pioneering is recounted by the Awl in list-form. Times have changed, along with the editors at the New Yorker and this in…
The Guardian researches why the female presence seems to be diminishing in science fiction writing. Though there isn’t necessarily a shortage of female authors (or women publishers), there is a…
Today is a good day for tumblrs (if you enjoy scientific illustrations or old children’s books). The answer is Gliese 581d! Let us now consider Texas State Fairs from the…
This week in San Francisco, plants kill people (Wicked Plants – the author speaks), people kill people (Assassins, a musical!) but music…oh, music will help us all to live again…
This week in New York writer Edna O’Brien and actor Gabriel Byrne at McNally Jackson Books, book party for Tracy K. Smith’s Life on Mars, Swoosie Kurtz reads Edith Wharton,…
Happy Memorial Day! We won’t be updating the site as often as usual today, as it is a holiday, but make sure not to miss Steve Almond’s “Musical Lamentation Offered…
You’ve probably heard about PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship, which will give 24 young people the opportunity to delay college (although some of the fellows have…