Notable NYC: 2/10–2/16
Literary events and readings in and around New York City this week!
...morePosts Tagged: Dave Eggers
Notable San Francisco: 1/24–1/30
LIterary events and readings in and around the Bay Area this week!
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Sound & Vision: Michael Hearst
Allyson McCabe talks with Michael Hearst, a founding member of One Ring Zero, about how he got his start in music and writing, and what he’s been working on recently.
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What to Read When Your Workplace Is Full of Drama
In honor of the World’s Worst Boss, we’ve put together a list of books full of workplace drama for you to read while we wait to see if we can get that orange guy fired.
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The Eternal Hunt for Relevance: Doree Shafrir Discusses Startup
Doree Shafrir discusses her debut novel, Startup, the differences between journalism and fiction, and why she chose to tell this particular story.
...moreNotable Twin Cities: 3/26–4/1
Sunday 3/26: Check out some rad writers on the topic of food: More Than a Single Story: Reclaiming Our Food. Carolyn Holbrook moderates panel of writers and community leaders as they discuss the colonization and commodification of food. Panelists include Pakou Hang, LaDonna Redmond, Princess Titus, and Diane Wilson. Also featuring the music of Taylor […]
...moreThis Week in Essays
Here at The Rumpus, this essay by Liz Latty on challenging the fairy tale myth of adoption is receiving a tremendous response from readers. Malloy Owen has written a mind-opening essay for The Point providing a valuable perspective that challenges liberals to reexamine liberalism. Many essays on the election results have expressed complete shock. Maurice Carlos Ruffin […]
...moreHow to Write Wilderness
At The Millions, Mary Catherine Martin responds to the flaws she found in Dave Eggers’s representation of the Alaskan wilderness in his most recent novel, Heroes of the Frontier. She explains why writers who “write wilderness” have a responsibility to understand the great outdoors before putting pen to paper: If there’s anything wilderness can teach you, […]
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The Big Idea: John Freeman
John Freeman, Executive Editor at Lit Hub, talks with Suzanne Koven about his new print-only literary magazine Freeman’s, the difference between between criticism and editing, and his fear of flying.
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The Circle Is Watching
In a world where boundaries between private and public are already blurring, Tim and Nicolaas wanted to find out what would happen if those boundaries disappeared altogether.
...moreWhat’s New?
For the New York Review of Books, Tim Parks writes about why we should read new books, when there’s so many “classics…available at knockdown prices”: As a reviewer of books she would often pan, Virginia Woolf thought one of the pleasures of reading contemporary novels was that they forced you to exercise your judgment. There […]
...moreThe Lower Forty-Eight
Dave Eggers has a new story up at the New Yorker: There is proud happiness, happiness born of doing admirable things in the light of day, years of good work, and afterward being tired and content and surrounded by family and friends, enjoying a sumptuous meal, ready for a deserved rest—sleep or death, it would […]
...moreWeekend Rumpus Roundup
In response to Dave Eggers’s new book, Your Fathers, Where Are They? And The Prophets, Do They Live For Ever?, Alex Kalamaroff takes us on a guided tour of the “dialogue novel,” a genre where conversation between characters is “the primary or only means of narrative advancement.” Kalamaroff boils the genre down to three sub-categories. Within […]
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“The.” “Dialogue?” “Novel!”
Writing a novel using only dialogue is a huge constraint, but it has been employed to perfection by a diverse array of writers, including Diderot, Donald Barthelme, David Foster Wallace, Lauren Myracle, and Thomas King.
...moreDialogue with an Astronaut
When I started the book, I hadn’t planned on it being only dialogue. I knew it would be primarily a series of interviews, or interrogations, but I figured there would be some interstitial text of some kind. But then as I went along, I found ways to give direction and background, and even indications of […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Corinne Goria
Author and veteran Voice of Witness editor Peter Orner sits down with Invisible Hands: Voices From the Global Economy editor Corinne Goria to talk about putting the book together, economic interdependency, and the complex human stories behind everyday items.
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The Rumpus Book Club Interviews Hilton Als
The Rumpus Book Club chats with Hilton Als about his new collection White Girls, an intriguing amalgam of fiction, essay, and memoir.
...moreThe argument for and against “Nice”
Tom Scocca, features editor at Gawker takes on the “newest weapon in the arsenal of privileged” in his recent essay. In response, Malcolm Gladwell writers over at The New Yorker that Being Nice Isn’t Really So Aweful: In being nice to the world, the writer obliges the world to be nice to him. But Scocca […]
...moreNarratives of Survival
The Voice of Witness project, founded by McSweeney’s Dave Eggers, is a nonprofit that records the narratives of those who have survived harrowing experiences. The project was started after Dave came back from the Sudan, where he witnessed people trying to rebuild their lives after the civil war.
...moreTHE CIRCLE OF LIFE
I’ve spent plenty of nights endlessly refreshing my Twitter and Facebook feed while I’m reading or writing, in the hopes of not feeling so alone… It’s time to admit to myself that part of the reason I do this is because it’s easier than being stuck in my own head. In the never-ending talk about […]
...moreDave Eggers Gets Google-y Eyed
Dave Eggers’s upcoming novel The Circle is about a woman whose life takes a turn for the sinister after she starts work at “the world’s most powerful internet company” with its “towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work,…athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish […]
...moreThe 826 Valencia Write-a-thon
The third annual 826 Valencia Write-a-thon is this coming weekend, Sunday, August 26. Grab your pens and pencils, computer, or typewriter and head down to 826 for a full day of inspired, 826-powered writing. The event is a fundraiser for 826 Valencia’s free student programs and works not unlike any other walk — or mara […]
...more“What happens when velocity gives out”
“In the end, what makes ‘A Hologram for the King’ is the conviction with which Eggers plunges into the kind of regular working American we don’t see enough in contemporary fiction, and gives voice and heft to Alan’s struggles in an information economy in which he has no information and there’s not much of an […]
...moreDave Eggers Public Signings
Dave Eggers will be signing copies of his new book, A Hologram for the King, at two independent San Francisco bookstores this week: Tuesday, July 17th: Books Inc. (Opera Plaza) Noon to 1 pm, 601 Van Ness, San Francisco, CA Wednesday, July 18th: Green Apple Books Noon to 1 pm, 506 Clement St, San Francisco, CA Stop […]
...moreA Hologram For The King
At The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani reviews Dave Eggers’ A Hologram for the King, calling it a “comic but deeply affecting tale about one man’s travails that also provides a bright, digital snapshot of our times.” For more on the novel, which is due out on June 28th, don’t miss Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott’s […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers’s new novel, A Hologram For The King, (due out from McSweeney’s June 28) is set in Saudi Arabia.
...moreA Short Note on Critics and Criticism
David Carr and A.O. Scott have a short video up at the Times about the state of modern criticism. As the length would suggest, it’s a light discussion. The subject is really the reviewing of Hollywood-Industrial-complex movies rather than criticism writ large — the kickoff being a certain blockbuster star being Twitter-angry with Scott over his […]
...moreAn Occupy Oakland and Occupy SF Roundup
By pretty much all accounts, last night was tense but hopeful for the Occupy movement in the Bay Area. (For an account of the national movement, check out Brian Spears’ roundup from this morning.) This is somewhat of a relief after Tuesday night, when a coalition of Bay Area police used tear gas, nonlethal rounds, […]
...moreRemember Your Favorite Teacher?
Dave Eggers writes about the teacher that inspired him to write—a relatable meditation on wanting to impress his favorite high school mentor who initially piqued his interest in the literary arts, and how this memory extends to the importance of quality teachers today. “I don’t remember Mr. Criche gearing his lesson plans toward any state-regulated […]
...moreCarolyn Lang: The Last Book I Loved, You Shall Know Our Velocity!
The last book that I loved was You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers, which is about two friends, Will and Hand, who come into $32,000 around the same time one of their friends dies unexpectedly. They are devastated by his death, and decide that they can’t keep the money because of the pain […]
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